Night-nature
The night is like a veil drawn up:
It wanes and waxes – as it grows
My own night-nature softly fills
Me up, until I’m scarcely what
I was before. Step after step
And step and step; the real world
Comes flashing past, devoid of thoughts
And graces, stuff which only serves
To hide us from ourselves. Here, now’s
The truth; the streetlamps’ glare shines through
The soul, increasing – strange! – deep dark
Where man and fox and shadow are
Alike. The windows pass the eye
Untouched, for what is there to find
In daylight, dull and warm and bland,
And thoughtful; here there’s no need to
Think, talk or dwell. The night provides
Its own with no need or desire
For more, only th’ incessant joy
Of being, lone from all the world
But also master, for there’s none
Can break into the ramparts of
A mind devoid of all but dark.
Thus pure, I care not what I pass;
The starving child, the dealer do
Not stir me from the prowl. Some time
Much later, when I’m one of them,
When light and day have claimed me as
Their own, I’ll think to this and stop,
But now I hurry nowhere. Fools
Think life’s a purpose; things they ‘ought’
To do are knives they’ve made themselves
To stab into a heart they think
They need to tend. It is not true.
But who can tell them this when in
The light, for what is there to say
When all about are things they’ve made?
The only way for them to learn’s
To feel it, but in terms of light
The night itself is bad. But no.
The night is like a veil drawn up:
Though it returns, it lingers too.