Noted in the Dark

Some nights here there’ve been singings
      the children out into twilight . . . their countings,
their hidings, their
      ally ally oxen frees.
And sometimes the crickets were not sounding bereft
      but offered impressions you needed to hear.

Now in the stillness you feel the heart as a bell
      after all the years, sounding through liquid
in the wrist and the ear
      though many the sundowns
when veins turn to faint smoldering . . .
      against regrets?
the constant shortening of time?
      the way fluid horizons can burn
without flame as day slips out.

The night sky seems a sieve:
      wavelengths and light years . . . the absences
we reach for, like too muted music we need to take in
      hoping the finally discernible notes,
accidentals, clusters, and cues
      will become one harmony, the sigh
soothing losses into the word rest

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