FOUR DOG NIGHTS

Sunset and dying light,

                                         the robin, dark warrior,

In his green domain.

Beyond West Virginia,

                                     the horses are putting their night shoes on,

Ready to break through.

On the stones of the imagination,

                                                          their sparks are like stars.

This is the stepchild hour,

                                           belonging to neither the light nor dark,

The hour of disappearing things.

I’ve made my tentative statement

                                                          under the threatening sky,

Honeysuckle in deep distress along the snow-slugged hedgerow.

Eschatology is the underart of the gods,

Patches of bull clover in the high desert landscape,

Installed but never instilled,

The bright, shining mirage our hearts are bedeviled to.

Time, great eraser.