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NIGHT OF VISION
By Quentin Smith
In a field high on the uncanny mountains
I stand in a wild and inhuman garden;
The birds of night fly past me
As I listen for the song
Of the heaven bird, the golden one.
But above me the sky is ringing
With starless silence
And a wind from an alien range
Whispers on my cheek
Like a cold and weightless tombstone.
I bend down to gather myself
For the ultimate moment,
Then my last upturned flinging gaze once again
Strikes darkness.
I fall and crumple soundlessly
On the flowers of the meadow.
Within nothing the night is shining;
Holiness is dead. As by a dark rushing light
My face is shattered back into interior distance.
Written 1973. |