“Night comes, an angel stands
Kathleen Raine’s “Nocturne“
Measuring out the time of stars,
Still are the winds, and still the hours…
countdown, just as the beetle's watch
ticks across these draughty rafters
the roof lifted skyward, with another notch
scored into honeycombed hereafters
dreams envision, marble rolls aside
along star trails we move rapidly with closed eyes
firing after comets, and wish-fulfilling waysigns
in the muffled passages of sleep, some are contrite
others calcitrate in protest at vestigial wings
and the way four forbidding angels disbar the winds of flight
raising a grain on the handiwork of our undoing
night is gritty; for these timely specks of sand
to wash up on the islands of the blest
we must prepare, and go down under first
Venturing into the imaginary garden for Tuesday’s Platform
PoetryPix 