Dusk Poem Quotes

I have seen your darkest nights and brightest days and I want you to know that I will be here forever loving you in dusk.

Waking At Night The blue river is grey at morning and evening. There is twilight at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me now is a beginning or an end.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver, thro' the wave that runs forever by the island in the river, flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls and four gray towers, overlook a space of flowers, and the silent isle imbowers, the Lady of Shalott.

How heron comes It is a negligence of the mind not to notice how at dusk heron comes to the pond and stands there in his death robes, perfect servant of the system, hungry, his eyes full of attention, his wings pure light

Why didn't you write all this time? Did you not remember us in a song? A dance? In the skies littered with stars? Did you not get drunk? Why didn’t you write all this time? Did you not remember us in a film? A book? In idyllic dusks and dawns? Did you not get high? It is good that you didn't. For all is well. I am drunk and dazed. I have already forgotten you and your bewitching ways.

What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers, nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells, And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes, Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall, Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.

Little Crazy Love Song” I don’t want eventual, I want soon. It’s 5 a.m. It’s noon. It’s dusk falling to dark. I listen to music. I eat up a few wild poems while time creeps along as though it’s got all day. This is what I have. The dull hangover of waiting, the blush of my heart on the damp grass, the flower-faced moon. A gull broods on the shore where a moment ago there were two. Softly my right hand fondles my left hand as though it were you.

If you don't look before the dusk and beyond the dawn, you won't be able to see the sun. (Soar)

There’s a book called “A Dictionary of Angels.” No one has opened it in fifty years, I know, because when I did, The covers creaked, the pages Crumbled. There I discovered The angels were once as plentiful As species of flies. The sky at dusk Used to be thick with them. You had to wave both arms Just to keep them away. Now the sun is shining Through the tall windows. The library is a quiet place. Angels and gods huddled In dark unopened books.

Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with little hands, Comes and touches you With a thousand memories, And asks you Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Night is the sleep of seven wax moths Dawn is the singing of five mermaids Noon is the scratching of three field mice Dusk is the shadow of a crow

The Sun by Czeslaw Milosz All colors come from the sun. And it does not have Any particular color, for it contains them all. And the whole Earth is like a poem While the sun above represents the artist. Whoever wants to paint the variegated world Let him never look straight up at the sun Or he will lose the memory of things he has seen. Only burning tears will stay in his eyes. Let him kneel down, lower his face to the grass, And look at the light reflected by the ground. There he will find everything we have lost: The stars and the roses, the dusks and the dawns. Warsaw, 1943

So remembering is only one more way of being alone when the voice has gone everywhere in the dusk of the porches looking for the last thing to say.

This world- To what may I liken it? To autumn fields lit dimly in the dusk by lightning flashes.

Dusk shrouds the long and useless day. Even the hope it denied us crumbles To nothing . . . Life is a drunken beggar Holding out his hand to his own shadow.

Dream of the Tundra Swan Dusk fell and the cold came creeping, cam prickling into our hearts. As we tucked beaks into feathers and settled for sleep, our wings knew. That night, we dreamed the journey: ice-blue sky and the yodel of flight, the sun's pale wafer, the crisp drink of clouds. We dreamed ourselves so far aloft that the earth curved beneath us and nothing sang but a whistling vee of light. When we woke, we were covered with snow. We rose in a billow of white.

Moonless nights haunt me. They evoke my once carefree life when I dreamed without doubt to what my future could be. I yearn for a time when my mother’s tree swayed beneath the dusk like an amber sea, but the past is locked without a key. Never to return—only flee.

Something about the time of year depressed him deeply. Overcast skies and cutting wind, leaves falling, dusk falling, dark too soon, night flying down before you are ready. It's a terror. It's a bareness of the soul. He hears the rustle of nuns. Here comes winter in the bone. We've set it loose on the land. There must be some song or poem, some folk magic we can use to ease this fear. Skelly Bone Pete. Here it is in the landscape and sky. We've set it loose. We've opened up the ground and here it is. He took Interstate 45 south. He didn't want them to kill Leon. He felt a saturating sense of death, a dread in the soft filling of his bones, the suckable part, approaching Galveston now.

He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs, With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars. Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire, And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire.

As the day drains out the window, I become more and more the focus of my own gaze.

...all movement stops and I walk in the timeless sadness of existence, tenderness flowing thru the buildings, my fingertips touching reality's face, my own face streaked with tears in the mirror of some window - at dusk - where I have no desire - for bonbons - or to own the dresses or Japanese lampshades of intellection -

Perfection" Every oak will lose a leaf to the wind. Every star-thistle has a thorn. Every flower has a blemish. Every wave washes back upon itself. Every ocean embraces a storm. Every raindrop falls with precision. Every slithering snail leaves its silver trail. Every butterfly flies until its wings are torn. Every tree-frog is obligated to sing. Every sound has an echo in the canyon. Every pine drops its needles to the forest floor. Creation's whispered breath at dusk comes with a frost and leaves within dawn's faint mist, for all of existence remains perfect, adorned, with a dead sparrow on the ground. (Poem titled : 'Perfection' by R.H.Peat)

In the words of a Zen poem, At dusk the cock announces dawn; At midnight, the bright sun.

Now I’m looking for any reason to go outside before dusk begins to swallow our afternoons.

There's nothing in this warm, vegetal dusk that is not beautiful or that will last.

Late August" Late August — This is the plum season, the nights blue and distended, the moon hazed, this is the season of peaches with their lush lobed bulbs that glow in the dusk, apples that drop and rot sweetly, their brown skins veined as glands No more the shrill voices that cried Need Need from the cold pond, bladed and urgent as new grass Now it is the crickets that say Ripe Ripe slurred in the darkness, while the plums dripping on the lawn outside our window, burst with a sound like thick syrup muffled and slow The air is still warm, flesh moves over flesh, there is no hurry

Eurydice Speaks” How will I know you in the underworld? How will we find each other? We lived for so long on the physical earth— Our skies littered with actual stars Practical tides in our bay— What will we do with the loneliness of the mythical? Walking beside ditches brimming with dactyls, By a ferryman whose feet are scanned for him On the shore of a river written and rewritten As elegy, epic, epode. Remember the thin air of our earthly winters? Frost was an iron, underhand descent. Dusk was always in session And no one needed to write down Or restate, or make record of, or ever would, And never will, The plainspoken music of recognition, Nor the way I often stood at the window— The hills growing dark, saying, As a shadow became a stride And a raincoat was woven out of streetlight I would know you anywhere.

Dusk" The shadow covers the outer petals The wind makes off with the final gestures of leaves The foreign, now twice-silenced sea inside a summer pitied for its lights A longing from here A memory from there

Like the hills under dusk you fall away from the light: you deepen: the green light darkens and you are nearly lost: only so much light as stars keep manifests your face: I feel the total night in myself rave for the light along your lips.

There was a time that crepuscular was mild, The hour for tea, acquaintances, and fall Away of day's difficulties, all Discouragement. Weep, you are not a child.

I could follow dusk always, brushing it with stripes and dots of simple beginnings for us to share in time. [Dusk Heart]

How a small dusk crawls on the village

She is the sweet fragrance, The magic of the dusk, The cloud in the waterfall, The drops spilled as dew, Rays filtering in the morning.

What I mean is—when I see your face in the dusk I understand the desire of the rain. Each time you happen to me all over again: from “A Dwelling in the Evening Air

Vision The rainbow touched down 'somewhere in the Rio Grande,' we said. And saw the light of it from your mother's house in Isleta. How it curved down between earth and the deepest sky to give us horses of color horses that were within us all of this time but we didn't see them because we wait for the easiest vision to save us. In Isleta the rainbow was a crack in the universe. We saw the barest of all life that is possible. Bright horses rolled over and over the dusking sky. I heard the thunder of their beating hearts. Their lungs hit air and sang. All the colors of horses formed the rainbow, and formed us watching them.

Now by the Path I Climbed, I Journey Back Now by the path I climbed, I journey back. The oaks have grown; I have been long away. Taking with me your memory and your lack I now descend into a milder day; Stripped of your love, unburdened of my hope, Descend the path I mounted from the plain; Yet steeper than I fancied seems the slope And stonier, now that I go down again. Warm falls the dusk; the clanking of a bell Faintly ascends upon this heavier air; I do recall those grassy pastures well: In early spring they drove the cattle there. And close at hand should be a shelter, too, From which the mountain peaks are not in view.

Oh, I could let the world go by, Its loud new wonders and its wars, BUt how will I give up the sky When winter dusk is set with stars? And I could let the cities go, Their changing customs and their creeds,– But oh, the summer rains that blow In silver on the jewel-weeds!

Sunsets are never simple. Twilight is refracted and reflected but never true. Eventide is a disguise covering tracks, covering lies. We don't care that dusk deceives. We see brilliant colors, and never learn the sun has dropped beneath the earth by the time we see the burn. Sunsets are in disguise, covering truths, covering lies.

Edge of Things" I wait at the twilit edge of things, A dry spell spilling over into drought, The slippages of shadow silting in, The interchange of dusk to duskier, The half-dark turning half-again as dark. There: night enough to call it a good night. I wait for the resurrection, but wake to morning: Mist lifting off the river. Ladders in the orchard trees although the picking's done.

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night we drink and we drink it we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are flashing he whistles his pack out he whistles his Jews out in earth has them dig for a grave he commands us strike up for the dance Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night we drink in the morning at noon we drink you at sundown we drink and we drink you A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete your ashen hair Shulamith we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined He calls out jab deeper into the earth you lot you others sing now and play he grabs at the iron in his belt he waves it his eyes are blue jab deeper you lot with your spades you others play on for the dance Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night we drink you at noon in the morning we drink you at sundown we drink and we drink you A man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete your ashen hair Shulamith he plays with the serpents He calls out more sweetly play death death is a master from Germany he calls out more darkly now stroke your strings then as smoke you will rise into air then a grave you will have in the clouds there one lies unconfined Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night we drink you at noon death is a master from Germany we drink you at sundown and in the morning we drink and we drink you death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is true a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete he sets his pack on to us he grants us a grave in the air he plays with the serpents and daydreams death is a master from Germany your golden hair Margarete your ashen hair Shulamith ("Death Fugue")

I did it the hard way (a poem) ___________________ Many of the big dreams I dreamt, I dreamt, when I met a failed attempt. Life taught me to believe that Great ideas can start from a wretched hut. Many of the strongest steps I took, I took, when I was given the fiercest look. My passion pokes me to understand That people’s mockeries, I can withstand. Many of the fastest speeds I gained, I gained when I was bitterly stained. I first thought the only way was to quit As I tried again, I no longer have guilt. Many of the bravest decisions I made, I made, when my life was about to fade. I was frustrated and ripe to sink. But then I strive to release the ink. Many of the longest journeys I started, I started, having no resource; money parted I relied on God my creator all dawn long And at dusk He gave me a new song. Many of the hardest questions I tackled, I tackled, when I was heckled. They were very troublesome to settle But I make it happen little by little Yet, it was not I, but the Lord Jesus The saviour who gives me success. In Him, through Him and by Him I have the liberty to do everything with vim. I don’t want to enjoy this liberty alone. You too must step out of your comfort zone. It’s not easy, but you can do it anyway. Jesus is the life, the truth and the way.

An Elegy, Years After Sarah” So her ceiling a map of stars. First time we made love late afternoon late winter, and after she slept how her room fogged up with dusk and paper stars she’d stuck up there in childhood came out in strange constellations and I missed the earth till her room was night her breath deepening the stars cooling down: I said come closer and her eyes — half-open, flashing back whatever light there was — went out.

Some things are Dark Some things are dark --- or think they are. But, in comparison to me, All things are light enough to see In any place, at any hour. For I am Nightmare: where I fly, Terror and rain stand in the sky So thick, you could not tell them from That blackness out of which you come. So much for ``where I fly'': but when I strike, and clutch in claw the brain--- Erebus, to such brain, will seem The thin blue dusk of pleasant dream.

I woke to the news you were dead. The what arrived before daylight; the how was agony unfolding as I dreaded my way to dusk. Unfolding against my want not to know (but I already knew, have known since I could know): officers, arrest, Black, man, twenty, video, knee, sir, back, dollar, 8, counterfeit, hands, sorry, 46, mama, please, breathe, please! Were you tired George? I feel tired sometimes. America on my neck--my lungs compressed so much they can't expand/contract--

Today is a writing day. My head is spinning with rapture as the words rise from my throat. I am dizzy from holding the world in my palm. At dusk, my lantern and I go in search of cries of the destitute, the displaced, and dispossessed. I lend them my pen and offer them my heart. Today is a sacred day. My skin is anointed with their blood, and I am ready to battle the darkness. With hope as my shield and love as my sword, I will not return until dawn. Because no one must be forgotten. Because victory is possible. Because anything is possible, for today is a writing day.

Unfinished Poem If only you allow me to take the colors of the dusk that bounce off your clear eyes. If only you could allow me to build a rain house in your dreams. Are you still waiting for me to say hello to an old time, my Dear? Time is somehow never meet us. Cracked rock and fragile flower petals that begin to wither. Even though I once wanted to pick the moon to decorate your dress. Promises that just pull over in the corner of our heart. Promises that have never been said through our mouth. Because the glint of your eyes is already painful and my tongue suddenly unable to find words. Words that I've always been intended as a poem from the first beginning.

Having the Having" I tie knots in the strings of my spirit to remember. They are not pictures of what was. Not accounts of dusk amid the olive trees and that odor. The walking back was the arriving. For that there are three knots and a space and another two close together. They do not imitate the inside of her body, nor her clean mouth. They cannot describe, but they can prevent remembering it wrong. The knots recall. The knots are blazons marking the trail back to what we own and imperfectly forget. Back to a bell ringing far off, and the sweet summer darkening. All but a little of it blurs and leaks away, but that little is most of it, even damaged. Two more knots and then just straight string.

On the Gallows Once Kofi Awoonor I crossed quite a few of your rivers, my gods, into this plain where thirst reigns I heard the cry of mourners the long cooing of the African wren at dusk the laughter of the children at dawn had long ceased night comes fast in our land where indeed are the promised vistas the open fields, blue skies, the singing birds and abiding love? History records acts of heroism, barbarism of some who had power and abused it massively of some whose progenitors planned for them the secure state of madness from which no storm can shake them; of some who took the last ships disembarked on some far-off shores and forgot of some who simply laid down the load and went home to the ancestors

Bleecker Street, Summer" Summer for prose and lemons, for nakedness and languor, for the eternal idleness of the imagined return, for rare flutes and bare feet, and the August bedroom of tangled sheets and the Sunday salt, ah violin! When I press summer dusks together, it is a month of street accordions and sprinklers laying the dust, small shadows running from me. It is music opening and closing, Italia mia, on Bleecker, ciao, Antonio, and the water-cries of children tearing the rose-coloured sky in streams of paper; it is dusk in the nostrils and the smell of water down littered streets that lead you to no water, and gathering islands and lemons in the mind. There is the Hudson, like the sea aflame. I would undress you in the summer heat, and laugh and dry your damp flesh if you came.

~We were here~ We were here years ago Dusk swept away the white day departing monotonous sun to sleep “You came out of abyss or on High?” The scent of her willingness breasts I breathe ! Eyes closed ! Naked bodies sailed in colour, sound and smell her swan-like arms coiled The shadowy light of lamp the flamboyant bits of dying coal sighed in air Blood depurated the tawny flesh of bodies Beside on a table words scattered like flock of birds grief, dejection and melancholy b r o k e n bones of free verse In contrivance of our sweetest submission words rupture; secret message deciphered unrhymed metamorphosed to rhymes they read our skins like first love poem besotted in warm delighted air flying high as kite You were coaxed to sing in flow; I danced wobbly Wary sky above the roof ceased in our devout brittle embrace.

I took the Washington bus; wasted some time there wandering around; went out of my way to see the Blue Ridge, heard the bird of Shenandoah and visited Stonewall Jackson’s grave; at dusk stood expectorating in the Kanawha River and walked the hillbilly night of Charleston, West Virginia; at midnight Ashland, Kentucky, and a lonely girl under the marquee of a closed-up show. The dark and mysterious Ohio, and Cincinnati at dawn. Then Indiana fields again, and St. Louis as ever in its great valley clouds of afternoon. The muddy cobbles and the Montana logs, the broken steamboats, the ancient signs, the grass and the ropes by the river. The endless poem. By night Missouri, Kansas fields, Kansas night-cows in the secret wides, crackerbox towns with a sea for the end of every street; dawn in Abilene. East Kansas grasses become West Kansas rangelands that climb up to the hill of the Western night.

It happens surprisingly fast, the way your shadow leaves you. All day you’ve been linked by the light, but now that darkness gathers the world in a great black tide, your shadow joins the sea of all other shadows. If you stand here long enough, you, too, will forget your lines and merge with the tall grass and old trees, with the crows and the flooding river—all these pieces of the world that daylight has broken into objects of singular loneliness. It happens surprisingly fast, the drawing in of your shadow, and standing in the field, you become the field, and standing in the night, you are gathered by night, Invisible birds sing to the memory of light but then even those separate songs fade, tiny drops of ink in an infinite spilling. — Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Still Life at Dusk,” Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, eds. Phyllis Cole-Dai & Ruby R. Wilson (Grayson Books, 2017)

Prairie Hymn: On the tongue a hymnal of American names, And the silence of falling snow—Glacier, Bearpaw, Bitterroot, Wind River, Yellowstone. I dreamed among the ice caps long ago, Ranging with the sun on the inward slope, Down the wheel of seasons and the solstices To the tilted moon and cradle of the stars. There was the prairie, always reaching. Time was sundered, and the light bore wonder. The earth broke open and I held my breath. In the far range of vision the prairie shone bright As brit on the sea, crescive and undulant… The range of dawn and dusk; the continent lay out In prairie shades, in a vast carpet of color and light. In the Sun Dance I was entranced, I drew in the smoke Of ancient ice and sang of the wide ancestral land. Rain-laden clouds ringed the horizon, and the hump-backed Shape sauntered and turned. Mythic deity! It became the animal representation of the sun, an In the prairie wind there was summer in the spring.

Dawn and a high film; the sun burned it; But noon had a thick sheet, and the clouds coming, The low rain-bringers, trooping in from the north, From the far cold fog-breeding seas, the womb of storms. Dusk brought a wind and the sky opened: All down the west the broken strips lay snared in the light, Bellied and humped and heaped on the hills. The set sun threw the blaze up; The sky lived redly, banner on banner of far-burning flame, From south to north the furnace door wide and the smoke rolling. We in the fields, the watchers from the burnt slope, Facing the west, facing the bright sky, hopelessly longing to know the red beauty-- But the unable eyes, the too-small intelligence, The insufficient organs of reception Not a thousandth part enough to take and retain. We stared, and no speaking. and felt the deep loneness of incomprehension. The flesh must turn cloud, the spirit, air, Transformation to sky and the burning, Absolute oneness with the west and the down sun. But we, being earth-stuck, watched from the fields, Till the rising rim shut out the light; Till the sky changed, the long wounds healed; Till the rain fell.

Memory Finally Memory’s finally found what it was after. My mother has turned up, my father has been spotted. I dreamed up a table and two chairs. They sat. They were mine again, alive again for me. The two lamps of their faces gleamed at dusk as if for Rembrandt. Only now can I begin to tell in how many dreams they’ve wandered, in how many crowds I dragged them out from underneath the wheels, in how many deathbeds they moaned with me at their side. Cut off, they grew back, but never straight. The absurdity drove them to disguises. So what if they felt no pain outside me, they still ached within me. In my dreams, gawking crowds heard me call out Mom to a bouncing, chirping thing up on a branch. They made fun of my father’s hair in pigtails. I woke up ashamed. So, finally. One ordinary Friday night they suddenly came back exactly as I wanted. In a dream, but somehow freed from dreams, obeying just themselves and nothing else. In the picture’s background possibilities grew dim, accidents lacked the necessary shape. Only they shone, beautiful because just like themselves. They appeared to me for a long, long, happy time. I woke up. I opened my eyes. I touched the world, a chiseled picture frame.

I did it the hard way Many of the big dreams I dreamt, I dreamt, when I met a failed attempt. Life taught me to believe that Great ideas can start from a wretched hut. Many of the strongest steps I took, I took, when I was given the fiercest look. My passion pokes me to understand That people’s mockeries, I can withstand. Many of the fastest speeds I gained, I gained when I was bitterly stained. I first thought the only way was to quit As I tried again, I no longer have guilt. Many of the bravest decisions I made, I made, when my life was about to fade. I was frustrated and ripe to sink. But then I strive to release the ink. Many of the longest journeys I started, I started, having no resource; money parted I relied on God my creator all dawn long And at dusk He gave me a new song. Many of the hardest questions I tackled, I tackled, when I was heckled. They were very troublesome to settle But I make it happen little by little Yet, it was not I, but the Lord Jesus The saviour who gives me success. In Him, through Him and by Him I have the liberty to do everything with vim. I don’t want to enjoy this liberty alone. You too must step out of your comfort zone. It’s not easy, but you can do it anyway. Jesus is the life, the truth and the way.

Then the pulse. Then a pause. Then twilight in a box. Dusk underfoot. Then generations. — Then the same war by a different name. Wine splashing in the bucket. The erection, the era. Then exit Reason. Then sadness without reason. Then the removal of the ceiling by hand. — Then pages & pages of numbers. Then the page with the faint green stain. Then the page on which Prince Theodore, gravely wounded, is thrown onto a wagon. Then the page on which Masha weds somebody else. Then the page that turns to the story of somebody else. Then the page scribbled in dactyls. Then the page which begins Exit Angel. Then the page wrapped around a dead fish. Then the page where the serfs reach the ocean. Then a nap. Then the peg. Then the page with the curious helmet. Then the page on which millet is ground. Then the death of Ursula. Then the stone page they raised over her head. Then the page made of grass which goes on. — Exit Beauty. — Then the page someone folded to mark her place. Then the page on which nothing happens. The page after this page. Then the transcript. Knocking within. Interpretation, then harvest. — Exit Want. Then a love story. Then a trip to the ruins. Then & only then the violet agenda. Then hope without reason. Then the construction of an underground passage between us. Srikanth Reddy, "Burial Practice" from Facts for Visitors. Copyright © 2004 by the Regents of the University of California. Reprinted by permission of The University of California Press. Source: Facts for Visitors (University of California Press, 2004)

Springs and summers full of song and revolution. The Popular Front, demonstrations and confrontations, time that takes you away from yourself and your poetry, so that you could see them as if from cosmic space, a way of looking that changes everything into stars, our Earth, you and me, Estonia and Eritrea, blue anemones and the Pacific Ocean. Even the belief that you will write more poems. Something that was breathing into you, as May wind blows into a house bringing smells of mown grass and dogs' barks, - this something has dissipated, become invisible like stars in daylight. For quite a time I haven't permitted myself to hope it would come back. I know I am not free, I am nothing without this breathing, inspiration, wind that comes through the window. Let God be free, whether he exist or no. And then, it comes once again. At dusk in the countryside when I go to an outhouse, a little white moth flies out of the door. That's it, now. And the dusk around me begins little by little to breathe in words and syllables. * In the morning, I was presented to President Mitterrand, in the evening, I was weeding nettles from under the currant bushes. A lot happened inbetween, the ride from Tallinn to Tartu and to our country home through the spring that we had waited for so long, and that came, as always, unexpectedly, changing serious greyish Estonia at once into a primary school child's drawing in pale green, into a play-landscape where mayflies, mayors and cars are all somewhat tiny and ridiculous... In the evening I saw the full moon rising above the alder grove. Two bats circled over the courtyard. The President's hand was soft and warm. As were his eyes, where fatigue was, in a curious way, mingled with force, and depth with banality. He had bottomless night eyes with something mysterious in them like the paths of moles underground or the places where bats hibernate and sleep.

Plains (part III) Down Zabia Street through a Polish city walks Rose in white feathers It’s not a costume ball for a long time the wind will carry feathers from the beds of those departed Their bodies will not leave impressions in the grass of May meadows nor on the waves which shimmer under the saffron fins of fishes their bodies will not leave impressions in the hay when a black lightning bolt of swallows flies with a squawk through an empty barn with dirt floor Their bodies will not leave impressions on any bed sheets Down Zabia Street through a Polish city walks Rose on uneven cobblestones past houses with blue stars and boarded-up windows walks through a temple where stray cats have found their lair She walks amidst the glowing feathers on this black day she walks through your cities neutral Swedes she walks through your homes theaters places of worship she walks through your villages neutral Swiss through your clean towns clean as tears She passed as clouds pass across the sky across the earth without a trace Within me I preserved her heartbeat the silence of her eyes the warmth and hue of her lips the heft of her insides her fleeting thighs in the shadow of love the shape of her head and the reddish dusk of her falling hair and the small sun of her smile She passed as clouds pass but from where is this immeasurably long shadow being cast

If you stand / there long enough the air will thicken / with dusk and dust and exhaust / and finally with / a starless dark. The day will become something / it's never been before, something for / which I have no name.

You’ve learned by now to wait without waiting; as if it were dusk look into light falling: in deep relief things even out. Be careless of nothing. See what you see. from “How to See Deer

Death is a friend we have not met, a voice we have not heard, a face we have not seen. Death is a slipping away, a going beyond a stepping through. It is a fading, as light slips from the sky at dusk, tenderly, and with a silent beauty. It is a leaf caught in the current, too far for us to reach from shore. It is a ship setting sail at dawn, to lands we do not know, and with friends we cannot follow. It is a bird set free from a cage, flying one last flight across our horizon before we lose it to the clouds. Death is the fall of a rose, the drop of a sparrow, the sigh of a barren bough. It is a letting go, a quieting of fear, and a haven from pain. Death is a coming home after a long journey. It is a safe harbor after many storms, and a sweet quiet rest after great labor. Death is a road we have not walked. a place we have not seen, a friend we have not met. It is a going and a coming, a departure, and an arrival. an end and a beginning.

The moon rose, and the moon set; And the stars rushed up and whirled and set; And again they swarmed, after a shaft of sunlight; And the dark blue dusk closed above him, like an ocean of regret.

She and her kisses It was Saturday afternoon, The Summer Sun shone bright, And there she was as usual basking in the casual moments of the noon, While I stood there looking at her beautiful face in the Summer light, She turned sideways and sometimes I could only see her back, And as her locks of hair descended downwards from her shoulders, I could witness in the daylight the magic of the beautiful black, It was a beautiful sight for all heavenly and earthly beholders, To see her splendor of beauty humble the Summer light, And what made her even more beautiful was her ignorance of this fact, That she was brighter than the summer light and during the night she was the envy of moonlight, And with time she seemed to have a secret pact, For the afternoon sun had now set behind the horizon of dusk, But she and her beauty were still embalmed by a mysterious eternal light, That charged at the keeper of time like the ferocious tusk, And guarded her beauty like the most devout knight, When she finally stood up and left the place, I followed the trail of her scent, her shadows and her feet, And there I saw her enter a grand palace of grace, The residence of beautiful innocence made radiant by acts of kindness that nothing can defeat, Because time and beauty are the gatekeepers of this place, Where she sleeps and renews her youth, her charms and her sensitive acts of tenderness, Then in a moment she vanishes behind the veil of sleep without leaving any trace, On the fleeting moments of time, so nobody knows how she attains this beautiful grace of absolute calmness, Maybe it is her ability to look at men and women differently, For no matter who she comes across she greets them genuinely, And offers them a smile of kindness fondly, And it is these acts, small insignificant acts of kindness that flash on her face so beautifully, That is why I love her, even if it means looking at her from the distance, Because I seek not that smile of kindness that she offers to all, I love to be with her and feel that secret romance, That has enslaved time to her commands and makes her the most beautiful woman of all, Someday when the sun has set and the moonlight is bright, And she travels in her dreams into the kingdom of time and eternity, There I shall be her dream, to be so then every night, And then that is what I shall love to be her and my eternity, Where she kisses me, And we lie cocooned in the shell of love, With time winding its silk strings around me, As she kisses me like the rain drops of love, Then as the silk cocoon of time preserves us both, I shall confess to her, under the afternoon Sun, That for her I was the moth, That died a billion times just to let her face, be the beauty’s eternal Sun, So she owes me a moment of love, with a billion kisses, And as she agrees we both shall sleep in the cocoon of time together, Nothing to separate us, not even light, we shall then grow as a grand feeling of love thriving on kisses, And grow in the cocoon of eternal time where love and kisses shall be the only weather.

Their corner She withdrew her hand from his soft but firm grip, And that was all about their romantic trip, She went her way and he went his way, And they got busy chasing the mammons of the day, The hands that held on to each other had slipped away, To feed the obsequious vanities of every new day, But at that discreet corner where she freed her hand, There she does often for a moments few stand, To hold the same sensation and to grab the same feeling, Under which her heart had discovered a new healing, And as her bus arrives, she occupies her seat, And keeps looking at the fading away corner in that narrow street, Where at dusk two shadows often meet, Holding each others hands as they wish and greet, The memory of the hands that held on to each other, Under the sun, under the moon, under the rain, in every weather, The man stands there moments after the woman has left, And his mind turns contemplative in ways simple yet deft, He too catches the bus and goes away, Leaving behind the shadows that you will find there every night and every day, Today the woman did not visit the corner, Today the man too did not surrender, His wishes and his desires, To this corner where he often her memories admires, And where she experiences his sensations crawling all over her, This corner where she felt him and he felt her, Where could they be wondered the street? And the corner, sadly in its obscurity clad dimension did retreat, The following day, they walked together holding their hands again, The street overflowed with joy and the corner had nothing left to disdain, They caught the bus together and looked at the corner and the narrow street, Where they now often meet, And the corner resonates with their whispering smiles, Because now in their minds they cover journeys of endless miles!

A poem for the rulers of nations. "Heavy lies the head that bears the crown, A weight of power, from dusk to dawn. In regal halls, with scepter and throne, The ruler's heart carries burdens unknown. Heavy lies the head, but it bears the weight, Of destiny's hand, of a kingdom's fate. Through trials and triumphs, they must lead, For the crown they wear is the nation's need. Served with platters of rumours and hate, Still they feed our nations from a selfless plate. Endless gossip and selfish press, Yet they take the punch with no regret. With grace and strength, they rise above, Their duty to cherish, their people to love. In the realm they govern, their hearts resound, For heavy lies the head that wears the crown.

Come with me, my friend, For the dusk has fallen down. Let us travel to a place, A fable, most believe, Held highly in renown.

Red Elephant" When am I supposed to say so long? When am I supposed to say so long? When I fall in love 'fore dusk is dawn When you take my hand across the lawn With the eyes so sweet they're like a fawn Red elephant is wet & long... How am I supposed to wash you off? Rungs of bad poems I've hacked & coughed But I have to spare a breath for you Which I'll take, before we make anew Our hearts will take a stroll for two Our feet will take the avenue & Walk in unison, so cute Red elephant is turning blue Why am I here when you're over there? Let's meet at the fountains In Dundas Square Who am I supposed to be with you? I'll wait 'til you say & pretend I knew Because if it's true that walls can talk How mine would brag of tears I've sobbed When thinking of the way we walked Along the paths of sideway chalk Forever under ticking clock Where you & I are free to flock What can I write when I know it's wrong? Slapping my knee to my own damn song Where can we go when the sinking stops? To the pit of my chest As it drops and drops... Put your head upon my chest, it breathes & My fingers through your hair they weave & Your shoulders are the perfect sea In which I get lost invariably Oh the elephant is up to sea If it meets the peach fish underneath & When I am you and you are me We are stirred as spoons in lover's tea

FAIRY-TALE   Suppose they really did live happily ever after. Suppose Cinderella was a good wife – and she could have been. I daresay she was reticent, timid, not one to make a fuss, or rock the boat, accustomed to orders and quiet in company. Suppose he was a good husband, the haughty prince, coddled from the cradle up. He might have pulled it off. He was in love after all, and love covers a multitude of offenses. Perhaps it wrapped up her social poverty and rough edges and lack of table manners in velvet and smoothed everything and the royal lovebirds got along just fine after all. Suppose that Belle forgot the beast-horns, the stamped image of his face framed with fur. Suppose she one day wrapped around his neck and felt only man-flesh there. Suppose Snow White stopped having nightmares about old women peddling apples, hook-nosed, cloaked, warted and long-fingered on her doorstep in the dusk. Suppose her prince one day learned to sleep the nights through, his fingers in her hair, no fear of jerking eyes wide to her screaming. I retain my right to believe in happy endings.

I mark my soul with changing shades of light, My person draws a line through the wind as I move over the landscape, eating the meta blue of sky born in the light of dusk, but not the sun itself,

I did it the hard way ( a poem) _________________________ Many of the big dreams I dreamt, I dreamt, when I met a failed attempt. Life taught me to believe that Great ideas can start from a wretched hut. Many of the strongest steps I took, I took, when I was given the fiercest look. My passion pokes me to understand That people’s mockeries, I can withstand. Many of the fastest speeds I gained, I gained when I was bitterly stained. I first thought the only way was to quit As I tried again, I no longer have guilt. Many of the bravest decisions I made, I made, when my life was about to fade. I was frustrated and ripe to sink. But then I strive to release the ink. Many of the longest journeys I started, I started, having no resource; money parted I relied on God my creator all dawn long And at dusk He gave me a new song. Many of the hardest questions I tackled, I tackled, when I was heckled. They were very troublesome to settle But I make it happen little by little Yet, it was not I, but the Lord Jesus The saviour who gives me success. In Him, through Him and by Him I have the liberty to do everything with vim. I don’t want to enjoy this liberty alone. You too must step out of your comfort zone. It’s not easy, but you can do it anyway. Jesus is the life, the truth and the way. ___________________________ Israelmore Ayivor

When by me in the dusk my child sits down I am myself. Simon, if it’s that loose, let me wiggle it out. You’ll get a bigger one there, & bite. How they loft, how their sizes delight and grate. The proportioned, spiritless poems accumulate. And they publish them away in brutish London, for a hollow crown.

Moonless nights haunt me. They evoke remembrances of a carefree life when I dreamed without doubt to what my future could be. I yearn for a time when my mother’s tree swayed beneath the dusk like an amber sea, but the past is locked without a key. Never to return—only flee

Something about the time of year depressed him deeply. Overcast skies and cutting wind, leaves falling, dusk falling, dark too soon, night flying down before you’re ready. It’s a terror. It’s a bareness of the soul. He hears the rustle of nuns. Here comes winter in the bone. We’ve set it loose on the land. There must be some song or poem, some folk magic we can use to ease this fear. Skelly Bone Pete. Here it is in the landscape and sky. We’ve set it loose. We’ve opened up the ground and here it is. He

Ghetto of Lost Dreams One certain street, consumed by dust Certain hearts, sorrowful, empty. This is where the lost dreams abide This is where they are abundant. Dreams many decades forgotten. A disappointed love there lies, In the corner noiselessly asleep. A long trampled aspiration Waits patiently in the hallway. Left to lie until the dusk comes To sweep them to their deserved rest, With her gentle golden fingers. Dreams that have yet to awaken; But meant to be dreamt all the same. A spark not caught, not yet a blaze. People not yet born, whose lives are Already planned all the way through

For you are dawn, I am your dusk And there is no past, no histories to trust

Let’s stop time, Love, to see what those clouds yearn to be, to listen to that butterfly stir the air around us, to hear, at dusk, the stars begin like crickets, tremulous, or feel their light begin to ripple in the lowest ferns; let’s see how skillfully the night covers this field of moons, the way your own look has passed the sentries of my heart– let’s add some message twig to this nest we’d set so far apart we only spoke with words that waited all winter in their cocoons. from “The Pause

tunes its harp and the crickets celebrate life, I am like a troubadour in search of friends, loved ones, anyone who will share with me a bit of conversation. My loneliness arrives ghostlike and pretentious, it seeks my soul, it is ravenous and hurting […] I want to find a solution, so I write letters, poems, and sometimes I touch solitude on the shoulder and surrender to a great tranquility. I understand I need courage and sometimes, mysteriously, I feel whole. from “Sometimes Mysteriously,

1. After dark, stars glisten like ice, and the distance they span Hides something elemental. Not God, exactly. More like Some thin-hipped glittering Bowie-being—a Starman Or cosmic ace hovering, swaying, aching to make us see. And what would we do, you and I, if we could know for sure That someone was there squinting through the dust, Saying nothing is lost, that everything lives on waiting only To be wanted back badly enough? Would you go then, Even for a few nights, into that other life where you And that first she loved, blind to the future once, and happy? Would I put on my coat and return to the kitchen where my Mother and father sit waiting, dinner keeping warm on the stove? Bowie will never die. Nothing will come for him in his sleep Or charging through his veins. And he’ll never grow old, Just like the woman you lost, who will always be dark-haired And flush-faced, running toward an electronic screen That clocks the minutes, the miles left to go. Just like the life In which I’m forever a child looking out my window at the night sky Thinking one day I’ll touch the world with bare hands Even if it burns. 2. He leaves no tracks. Slips past, quick as a cat. That’s Bowie For you: the Pope of Pop, coy as Christ. Like a play Within a play, he’s trademarked twice. The hours Plink past like water from a window A/C. We sweat it out, Teach ourselves to wait. Silently, lazily, collapse happens. But not for Bowie. He cocks his head, grins that wicked grin. Time never stops, but does it end? And how many lives Before take-off, before we find ourselves Beyond ourselves, all glam-glow, all twinkle and gold? The future isn’t what it used to be. Even Bowie thirsts For something good and cold. Jets blink across the sky Like migratory souls. 3. Bowie is among us. Right here In New York City. In a baseball cap And expensive jeans. Ducking into A deli. Flashing all those teeth At the doorman on his way back up. Or he’s hailing a taxi on Lafayette As the sky clouds over at dusk. He’s in no rush. Doesn’t feel The way you’d think he feels. Doesn’t strut or gloat. Tells jokes. I’ve lived here all these years And never seen him. Like not knowing A comet from a shooting star. But I’ll bet he burns bright, Dragging a tail of white-hot matter The way some of us track tissue Back from the toilet stall. He’s got The whole world under his foot, And we are small alongside, Though there are occasions When a man his size can meet Your eyes for just a blip of time And send a thought like SHINE SHINE SHINE SHINE SHINE Straight to your mind. Bowie, I want to believe you. Want to feel Your will like the wind before rain. The kind everything simply obeys, Swept up in that hypnotic dance As if something with the power to do so Had looked its way and said: Go ahead.

A flake of dust flying in the wind Uncatchable, undistinguished Just another spoken word Sacrosanct when abided Irrelevant when challenged

All the peace there is to find I still find in you All my years wind down in the melody of your song

This is more real than the living man I still bask in rays of bewilderment from Bethlehem With its dusking evenfall This noon dream rends Athena’s glim As its symphony can’t be chained in sleep

Better the blue silence and the gray west, The autumn mist on the river, And not any hate and not any love, And not anything at all of the keen and the deep: Only the peace of a dog head on a barn floor, And the new corn shoveled in bushels And the pumpkins brought from the corn rows, Umber lights of the dark, Umber lanterns of the loam dark. Here a dog head dreams. Not any hate, not any love. Not anything but dreams. Brother of dusk and umber.

Yahweh to Urset I pray that you are kept safe throughout this day, that you live as wholly as you can, that you see things that you have not seen before and that more of them are beautiful than not, more of them delightful than not. I pray that you hold easily in your hands the balance of the earth and sky, that you laugh and cry, know freedom and restraint, some joy and some sorrow, pleasure and pain, much of life and a little of death. I pray that you are grateful for the gift of your being, and I pray that you celebrate your life in the proper way, with grace and humility, wonder and contentment, in the strong, deep current of your spirit’s voice. I pray that you are happily in love with the dawn and that you are more deeply in love in the dusk.

The Cat - Poem by Jibanananda Das All day I inevitably encounter a cat here and there In the shadow of trees or out in the sun, around the pile of fallen leaves; I catch sight of him, deeply engrossed like a bee, with his own self Embedded in the skeleton of white soil Having successfully spotted some bones of fishes somewhere; But still, nevertheless, he scratches at the trunk of the Krishnachura tree All day he moves about stalking the sun. Now he shows up here The next moment he is lost somewhere. I spot him in the autumn dusk playing around As if, with his white paws, he is patting the supple body of the saffron sun; Then he nets up the tiny balls of darkness with his paw And spreads them throughout the world.

I entered the empty room. I sat on the floor and drew pictures all day. One day I held a picture against the bare wall: it was a window. Climbing through, I stood in a sloping field at dusk. As I began walking, night settled. Far ahead in the valley, I saw the lights of the village, and always at my back, I felt the white room swallowing what was passed. from “The Room,” Selected and New Poems. (Wesleyan University Press, 1988)

The blue river is grey at morning and evening. There is twilight at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me now is a beginning or an end. — Jack Gilbert, “Waking at Night,” The Dance Most of All: Poems. ( Knopf; First Edition edition April 7, 2009)

But leave me a little love, A voice to speak to me in the day end, A hand to touch me in the dark room Breaking the long loneliness. In the dusk of day-shapes Blurring the sunset, One little wandering, western star Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow. Let me go to the window, Watch there the day-shapes of dusk And wait and know the coming Of a little love. —Carl Sandburg, from “At the Window,” Chicago Poems (Dover Publications, 1994)