Night has already come to the Ashby reeds,

Though it is still day out on the lake.

Night has soaked into the sand shadowed by reeds.

And how many other darknesses it reminds me of!

The darkness a father feels the moment a child is born,

Blood that pours from the animal’s neck,

The rocket free of earth climbing toward the moon.

~

originally published in This Tree Will Be Here For A Thousand Years (1979) by Robert Bly