Late Night
Sleepless at one-thirty
I rise and open a window
for a draught of real air.
It is silent outside,
I’ve outlasted
even the crickets and cicadas.
Street lamps,
one near and one far
make crosses of light –
star-crosses –
one large and one small
on the windowscreen.
The damp, late-summer air
holds the pleasant scent
of new-cut lawns.
In the darkness
the once rigid lines
of neighbors’ walls and roof
and intersecting streets
are softened.
Then a faint light on one corner of my yard
and now shadows of tree-trunks and lamp post
stretch long and fan away
across the even grass.
The car
itself a dark rectangle between the washing flash of headlamp
and tail-light painting the pavement red behind
whispers by my window.
I hear the roll of the tires over the asphalt.
It disappears down the hill
and my still-life
is transformed into an unknowable mystery.
Who?
Where?
Why?
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