When I can't keep the peace in my own soul, I walk to the corner and look up, out To silhouettes of winter oaks tracing Black veins against a color-wheel sunset And stand, held, as if in divine embrace. But this always gives way to fuller dark— The perpetual dying of each day— Would I feel held, comforted by the scene If it outlined rubble, twisted re-bar Groping from a bombed-out hospital; If the dying light were all I'd see by Until the next missile or muzzle flash; If the each day's work were deftly undone By thieves just as desperate as me? Is there still wonder on the edge of gloom? This ball of rock and dust whirs in the void, Horizons keeping equal vantage toward Our fading star from points scarred or sacred Make us remember we are also dust. Night comes, for some slow, pouncing on others— From joy, sorrow, peace, war; from pain, cancer, Or the best of health met with a bullet; From halls of unaccountable power Or the unmarked shelter of fear and lack; From patience or high disregard—it comes. Perhaps the evening redness in the west Is no mere balancing on the knife-edge— The mixing of two incongruous worlds— But the mirror promise that tomorrow Will lighten, glow, and try to live again.
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