Current Track: Blabb
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

I switch off all the lights. Those that I love

Are all abed, both in the other room

And all across the city that I love.

I see my way across the meagre room

And to the too-tall curtains by the light

Of thrift-store stained-glass lamp, by oven light,

By streetlight spilling through venetian blinds,

And by the moon through torn translucent clouds.

She also does not sleep. She also walks

To look upon the city that she loves.

And wakeful too, past midnight, not so far

Away as I must wish that they could be

Are those whose minds are bent on ending me

And those abed I love, and I suppose

The city too, for sin of sheltering

And being loved by such as me and mine.

Among them there those that once I thought

My kin. This thought does not keep me from sleep.

Nor does the thought of ever looming war,

But what comes after? Will they still hang lamps

On balconies? Will chocolate still be shared?

Will they lay gameboards in the upper rooms?

Will they still talk of otherworldly grief

In teashops? Will they walk beneath the trees

And savor the green coolness of the shade?

How many homes that I had learned to love

Are lost to me. I may yet lose this too.

No power have I to amend this world,

To stay or slow this coming tide. I can

Not even trust to save those that I love.

Eternity and Time may know, the Moon

May guess, my city's fate. But I can only pray,

With all the lights switched off, as lights must be,

That if it must be lost, someone, someday

Will, seeing in the ruin some small sign—

A lantern on a balcony, perhaps—

Then understand that once this place was loved.