Dusk

for Barry Lopez

Horizon turns from blue to black

with infinite tenderness in London

tonight. Yet even at full dusk a smear

of cobalt rings the tree line. Maybe

endless love awaits us. I know you believed

so, even as forests and rivers turned to fire,

libraries to ash. Now that you’re not here

to tend them, the lamps you lit remain for us.

Sometimes it’s important to see the darkness,

you would say, to regard one another,

and our trembling. Or on other nights, like

now: we must look up. How is this same

moon in my sky hanging over Eugene these

small hours? Do you feel its comforts?

As you sleep through this final stretch

how badly I want you to know we have

the torches now, my friend, we’ll protect the flame,

you are free to be the wind again.