Look, the eucalyptus, the Atlas pine, <br />the yellowing ash, all the trees <br />are gone, and I was older than <br />all of them. I am older than the moon, <br />than the stars that fill my plate, <br />than the unseen planets that huddle <br />together here at the end of a year <br />no one wanted. A year more than a year, <br />in which the sparrows learned <br />to fly backwards into eternity. <br />Their brothers and sisters saw this <br />and refuse to build nests. Before <br />the week is over they will all <br />have gone, and the chorus of love <br />that filled my yard and spilled <br />into my kitchen each evening <br />will be gone. I will have to learn <br />to sing in the voices of pure joy <br />and pure pain. I will have to forget <br />my name, my childhood, the years <br />under the cold dominion of the clock <br />so that this voice, torn and cracked, <br />can reach the low hills that shielded <br />the orange trees once. I will stand <br />on the back porch as the cold <br />drifts in, and sing, not for joy, <br />not for love, not even to be heard. <br />I will sing so that the darkness <br />can take hold and whatever <br />is left, the fallen fruit, the last <br />leaf, the puzzled squirrel, the child <br />far from home, lost, will believe <br />this could be any night. That boy, <br />walking alone, thinking of nothing <br />or reciting his favorite names <br />to the moon and stars, let him <br />find the home he left this morning, <br />let him hear a prayer out <br />of the raging mouth of the wind. <br />Let him repeat that prayer, <br />the prayer that night follows day, <br />that life follows death, that in time <br />we find our lives. Don't let him see <br />all that has gone. Let him love <br />the darkness. Look, he's running <br />and singing too. He could be happy.<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/any-night/
