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Shadow on Fire: From Wild Gratitude
| Article
# : |
12568 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1987 |
1,292 Words |
| Author
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Edward Hirsch
Edward Hirsch has received numerous awards for poetry
including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the
Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets,
the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University,
and most recently the National Book Critics Award (1987) for
his work, Wild Gratitude. He teaches at the University of
Houston. |
Dawn Walk
Some nights when you're asleep
Deep under the covers, far away,
Slowly curling yourself back
Into a childhood no one
Living will ever remember
Now that your parents touch hands
Under the ground
As they always did upstairs
In the master bedroom, only more
Distant now, deaf to the nightmares,
The small cries that no longer
Startle you awake but still
Terrify me so that
I do get up, some nights, restless
And anxious to walk through
The first trembling blue light
Of dawn in a calm snowfall.
It's soothing to see the houses
Asleep in their own large bodies,
The dreamless fences, the courtyards
Unscarred by human footprints,
The huge clock folding its hands
In the forehead of the skyscraper
Looming downtown. In the park
The benches are layered in
Of winter, to the soothing blue gift
Of powdered snow! And soon
A few scattered lights come on
In the houses, a motor coughs
And starts up in the distance, smoke
Raises its arms over the chimneys.
Soon the trees suck in the darkness
And breathe out the light
While black drapes open in silence.
And as I turn home where
I know you are already
...
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