Night

Dark pulses warm and moist
on the springtime air
this night. There hangs
a voluptuous moon
luminous and heavy
as woman with child
casting a diluted coruscation
limning leaves
rustling in the silent breeze.
Birds shift in the trees
somnolently ease feathers
beak comforting birdtalk
to one another
their sounds near lost
in the concert of crickets
the creak of the frogs
beating the night
so it shifts and breathes
croaks and trills
like some giant
unknowable beast
like some well-greased
programmed machine
a perpetual motion job
turning out generation
after generation of
night revellers
nocturnal emissions
fleeting the darkness
spiralling treetops
the hunted, the hunters
silent in pursuit or flight
the crickets and frogs
in a rising crescendo
of purpose
drowning the silence
of the chase.

Originally published in Early Harvest, Gusto Press, 1980