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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TRACKING THE NIGHT CREATURE, by SCOTT CHISHOLM
First Line: At the end of the pasture, / blackness sits in a velvet crouch
Subject(s): Night; Bedtime
First Line: At the end of the pasture, / blackness sits in a velvet crouch
Subject(s): Night; Bedtime
At the end of the pasture,
blackness sits in a velvet crouch,
its cape spread, arms open
to the midnight sky.
When this happens,
the night creature begins its stir,
first in a drift of stars,
then in a cud of dream,
chewing its long voyage
across an arc of space.
Its slow churn has no memory
of earth, sky, water, air
or fire. Its soundless drift
is circle upon circle turning,
entered or entering endlessly
in whorls of silence.
Unlike the night creature,
I awakened to a husk of day,
fox bark and cricket's song
tuning in my throat.
Copyright © Scott Chisholm.
http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm
Prairie Schooner is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which
publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the
prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the
campus-based literary journals.
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