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

[rejectomorph]

I am exposed!

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