a poem for the night

it’s been snowing steadily all day. and all day, as i looked out from where i sit at my writing desk, i have been waiting with the best composure i could summon to share this poem. i discovered it through an excerpt beautifully illustrated by Éireann Lorsung, writer, poet, and designer/creative director/editor of MIEL books (who also has a doctorate in Critical Theory!). as darkness falls, a crisp quietude unfolding across the land and pressing up against the windows, i am poised, now, to welcome the night with this wonderfully solemn and deeply felt poem by Wayne Dodd:

Of Rain and Air

All day I have been closed up
inside rooms, speaking of trivial
matters. Now at last I have come out
into the night, myself a center 

of darkness.
Beneath the clouds the low sky glows
with scattered lights. I can hardly think
this is happening. Here in this bright absence 

of day, I feel myself opening out
with contentment.
All around me the soft rain is whispering
of thousands of feet of air 

invisible above us.

from Sometimes Music Rises (Georgetown Press, 1986).

photos are my own.