NIghts too Short

[rejectomorph]

The air hums. The pines have caught a fragment of the moon. The pavement makes my footsteps silence the crickets. I cannot sleep. Again, I am up too late, and hear woodpeckers drilling as gray light conceals the last stars. I wonder when I will sleep in darkness again?

The Sirens

by Richard Wilbur


I never knew the road
From which the whole earth didn't call away,
With wild birds rounding the hill crowns,
Haling out of the heart an old dismay,
Or the shore somewhere pounding its slow code,
Or well-lighted towns
Seeming to tell me, stay.

Lands I have never seen
And shall not see, loves I will not forget,
All I have missed, or slighted, or foregone
Call to me now. And weaken me. And yet
I would not walk a road without a scene.
I listen going on,
The richer for regret.

Comments

[mrmustard.livejournal.com]

OK, now I've got it figured out. The posts over the past two weeks were fabricated to make this poem seem more appropriate. We read the poem, think "how did he stumble on that?" and have to conclude that your read IMENSE amounts of poetry, but in reality you select a poem, warm up to it for six or seven posts, and then unleash it.

You can't fool me.

[rejectomorph]

I am exposed!

(Seriously. I just discovered that there's a hole in my pants. I'm exposed!)