Night Trees with Stars (photo by jpstanley via Creative Commons)
As I’ve stated before, poetry softens my heart to listen. So I often start my time of reading and reflection with a poem. Currently, I am soaking in the penetrating words of Michael O’Siadhail. Today’s poem was such a treat that I wanted to share it with you. In this poem, O’Siadhail alludes to a poem by Eleanor Farjeon,
The Night Will Never Stay.
The night will never stay,
The night will still go by,
Though with a million stars
You pin it to the sky,
though you bind it with the blowing wind
And buckle it with the moon,
The night will slip away
Like sorrow or a tune.
With her poem in the back of your mind, listen to the words, phrases and images of O’Siadhail as he explores the turning of seasons, of night to day, of dark to light.
Springnight
Framed by our window, trunks and branches
of chestnut trees are handbook illustrations
of arteries, veins charcoaled on a frosty sky.
Unnoticed tee-shaped shoots fuzz the outline.
After a winter’s wait an increment is sprung
in slow motion, growth catching us unawares.
Night is falling. The foreground darkens.
A trial of mauve clouds along the skyline
tones into the murk. A change of scene.
I gaze. You, my love, are tucked in sleep.
On edge, I begin loneness of a night;
all eyes and ears I’m keeping this watch.
Starlight throws a window oblong on our wall,
a screen where homing cars project the trees–
slowly, then rushing back in previews of dawn.
The night will never stay. A half-refrain
from the primary reader unreels in my mind
like a mantra. Will a bird come on cue?.
A distant lemon streak. The trees blush.
In my vigil a world is disclosing its meaning:
wonderful terror, terrifying wonder of waiting.
