night poem

It’s hard for me to find a way to describe the beauty of what happens on many nights during my walk, when I crawl into my sleeping bag and wait for sleep to crash down on me.  I’m not overly poetic, and I don’t pretend that I have any skill in that department, it always seems so, I don’t know, pompous, but when I sit down to try and write about my nights on the road, something resembling poetry (like a distant, very inbred cousin, maybe) comes out.  So bear with me on this ok?

These are my nights along the banks
of nameless stream and weak river,
in harvested field and fallow,
in groves and copses of unknown trees,
in deserts and alpine meadows. 
fireflies like twinkling eyes of animal
or distant torches dancing,
like being above the stars,
among them, maybe,
further out than space itself
watching it all happen
in fits and flashes. 
motes of light mixed in swirling darkness,
millions of tiny super novae,
lonely beams,
shouts into the abyss,
crossing and crossing again,
above and below around me flow;
a world’s surprise at itself and its abundance. 
Sounds in the night, a cricket’s burr
and a bat wing whispering by my ear,
the tiny robot-steps
of torpid ants searching
in a blackness that doesn’t matter,
not to it,
not to all the others that
explore and hunt and hide,
and flee and shuffle
in genetic-zombie thrall.
Scuffling rodents with timid-soft steps,
furtive, afraid. 
Owl and hawk,
fox and cat,
they never sleep,
never will. 
Dogs bark in the distance,
or close,
it’s all the same;
plaintive calls and warnings,
like waves spreading,
inspiring others to raise their voices
and soon the valley fills
with shards of sound,
how many really know what they’re saying? 
The night-wind plays
instruments of leaf and blade
until it makes water sounds,
levitated rivers,
invisible shores seeming distant. 
I know I’ll drown
if I raise myself up from my bed; the ground. 
A mosquito trails its synthesizer-hum,
always the perfect pitch of hate,
and when it stops, where is it? 
What part of me has it found exposed,
open for some siphoned blood? 
I huddle deeper
into the down of my bag,
burying fingers into makeshift pillows,
hiding my face from little vampires
and the cold wash of river’s air. 
Sometimes the quiet grips so tightly
I can hear my graying whiskers slide
and catch on the nylon skin of my cocoon,
my heart’s sloshing slur,
my breath like the tides,
an unending wash of in’s and out’s,
that will be much the same until I die. 
What will it be? 
my last breath? 
in or out? 
it’s always out, isn’t it, the last one? 
I would like mine to be in. 
I will try. 
The spiders make no sound
on their silken streets
but I can hear their thoughts
spin-clear in my mind
or is it just a fancy?
I am the silent-unmoving hunter. 
I build and wait in clinging thread
the tiny things that fly,
that must die in eight-limbed embrace,
the double pinch of fang,
each of you meet my home head on,
a silent, paralyzed stew.  
not just nature amplifies itself
at night
above and around my bed; the ground. 
Trucks roll by with metallic roars,
downshifting growls,
synchronized explosions
to push it along progress’ path. 
Rubber and tar, 
the friction-hum of eighteen reluctant wheels. 
And cars,
metallic banshees with Doppler-screams,
harassing the night…
I can almost hear the scrape of headlights on cliff and hill,
creating the briefest halogen-reality
that fades so quickly
in taillight-glow. 
And in the villages below
where my cliff-bed hovers,
or in the towns and cities not-so-near,
I can hear the scraps of sound
that the river’s air washes my way. 
Salsa, merengue, cumbia, huayno, reggaetón,
exalted cries of evangelist fervor,
news-chants, 
soulless commercials from radio and TV,
and in between,
sometimes laughter,
sometimes shouts. 
 Muddled rags of conversation
and beer-stained monologues. 
And sometimes,
(as in it has happened more than once)
the muffled sobs of a woman
and her defeated gait,
she’s passing through this night,
(it’s so dark right now)
seeking refuge from fist and spittle,
from glazed-eyed hate. 
And when I sleep I hear my dreams
and their cacophony,
bright, clanging raucous things,
my dreams
movies of my eternal confusion. 
Then the morning evolves from nothing,
really,
pours slow like cream
into the black,
brings every object back to life. 
Now it’s the rooster’s crow,
earlier than he should, in my opinion. 
And like the dogs before,
that now twitch and mumble in fitful sleep,
the rooster’s song gathers others,
incites a clamoring riot
of lipless cries that tumble
down the ridge,
across valley,
partway up the other side,
finally collapsing on itself.
Leaving for the briefest moment…
quiet.  And in that moment,
if my head is not to foggy,
and if I let it happen,
I can hear each blade of grass
aching under early morning dew,
that sits like drops of dull quicksilver
waiting for the sun to glisten them.
And the day sounds nothing like the night
Of that I’m sure.