AWAKE AT NIGHT

Late in the night I pay

the unrest I owe

to the life that has never lived

and cannot live now.

What the world could be

is my good dream

and my agony when, dreaming it,

I lie awake and turn

and look into the dark.

I think of a luxury

in the sturdiness and grace

of necessary things, not

in frivolity. That would heal

the earth, and heal men.

But the end, too, is part

of the pattern, the last

labor of the heart:

to learn to lie still,

one with the earth

again, and let the world go.