Night Without Sleep

The world's as the world is; the nations rearm and prepare to change; the age of tyrants returns; The greatest civilization that has ever existed builds itself higher towers on breaking foundations. Recurrent episodes; they were determined when the ape's children first ran in packs, chipped flint to an edge. I lie and hear dark rain beat the roof, and the blind wind. In the morning perhaps I shall find strength again To value the immense beauty of this time of the world, the flowers of decay their pitiful loveliness, the fever-dream Tapestries that back the drama and are called the future. This ebb of vitality feels the ignoble and cruel Incidents, not the vast abstract order. I lie and hear dark rain beat the roof, and the night-blind wind. In the Ventana country darkness and rain and the roar of waters fill the deep mountain-throats. The creekside shelf of sand where we lay last August under a slip of stars, And firelight played on the leaning gorge-walls, is drowned and lost. The deer of the country huddle on a ridge In a close herd under madrone-trees; they tremble when a rockslide goes down, they open great darkness- Drinking eyes and press closer. Cataracts of rock Rain down the mountain from cliff to cliff and torment the stream-bed. The stream deals with them. The laurels are wounded, Redwoods go down with their earth and lie thwart the gorge. I hear the torrent boulders battering each other, I feel the flesh of the mountain move on its bones in the wet darkness. Is this more beautiful Than man's disasters? These wounds will heal in their time; so will humanity's. This is more beautiful ... at night . . .