Nocturne, October

The chapel dark, organ pipes glow 
moon-silver. Silence 
is filled: after-ripples, 
the aura of living tones, 
Bach, Handel. 

Late, toward home, 
I see only the street lamp, 
its light descending like fine rain 
on one blessed spot, a brief halo, 
then darkness. 

A breath of wind moves my hair. 
The night listens . . . listens . . . 
feathers of birds in their places of sleep 
stir. Behind me, a leaf 
strokes the pavement. 

Night touches the braille of all it contains: 
each point of grass downhill from the church, 
the rise and fall of desert, softly 
dynamic beyond town, the ebony stream 
of the river’s resonant moving.