Almost Alone at Almost Midnight

The raving air where winter-tree skeletal ranks stand guard

Wraps night around the near and far of hollow, hill and yard

The iron sky of morn-til-nigh recants its stone-faced quest

Where ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ tucks twilight to its rest

Dark’s curb-less sea rolls in with ease to snuff dusk’s remnant gleam

As day’s familiarities are caught up in its stream

And on the verge twixt yesterday and morrow, the ballast

Holding today in place must soon tender it to the past

The quickening of everything is amplified as night

Extinguishes the pictures that fill windows by daylight

The vantage-point of sun at noon is filled with moon and stars

And midnight is a Brigadoon for wide-eyed foreigners

The clock may spell the hour in the belfry tower, still

The dark will drape Her cape across the face of it until

The impulse of something that nighttime never could resist

Breathes soft upon the skyline where the dark is morning-kissed

© Janet Martin