Like Shade in the Shadow


The darkness at the end of my tunnel is a bad darkness.
All told, it is swirling with desire and instinct
Like a tree in autumn wind, unleashed, perhaps
Going nowhere. Like the train I hear in the distance
At night when everybody else has gone to bed.
In my head, there will be dreams later on
of lawns and tranquil sheets of red leaves
spread on lawns, in the shade, where it is
thick as briars or ivy that darkness which invades
my head. And as if someone’s asked me to name
it specifically, I know I can only conjure the rich
deep greens of late summer, the shade
on the other side of the hill which is wet
with life, where the yawning end of the world begins.