whatever may come

There are nights like this. Too tired to sleep, too tired to write, too tired to read - except heart-warming, soothing words as these.


Late journeys

You think you'll sleep so well tonight
warmed with the glow of feeling precious
to someone else out there.     Can it be?

You don't sleep that well,
but what's that simple?
Us animals snuffle around so eagerly.

At dusk - coral pink clouds
lined up along the horizon
like mysterious monuments symbolising "Hope".

A weighty full moon hangs over the pier,
silvers the sea, churns our hearts.
Warm silk summer nights.

The orange lights of provincial railway stations.
People walking home, people taking the last train,
shouting across streets, talking on the platform.

It seems all right
whatever may come.


Lee Harwood, from Late Journeys 1996-1998 in Collected Poems (Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2004), p. 458.