Listen to the Night
(For Daysun, Age 6)
The sheets of days
are sliding between us accumulating changes
we will never have the time to share.
Sleep
in the arms of innocence and night
miles away and miles deep
in dreams in another man’s home
while he holds your mother
and whispers in the dark
and keeps her warm.
My talk will not disturb them
though you frown and sigh
and pull your pillow to your ear.
I will speak quietly in the vowels
of the moon’s voice round
and silver.
What do you do with your foreign life?
Are you free to cross the fields?
Do you hide your peas in the cuff of your pants?
When you wonder where the sun goes,
do they tell you true (or try to fool you
as I might do with a monstrous purple lie)?
I’m sorry.
Did I speak too loud?
Maybe our messenger the moon has just
gone behind a cloud, but I could swear
I heard some voice
reply.
Time makes distance farther
and out of my control you grow
to the dictates of different weather.
When the days we have together
winnow, then cease—
when the daylight of life
intervenes between choices and dreams
and you have what seems to be all
of forever before you—if you feel you are somewhere
love cannot reach, then
listen to the night
and for the lullabies the moon sings.
From I May or May Not Love You
