At Night

Into the shelter of the Earth
I took you and I carried you;
and there, awaiting our re-birth,
I knelt down and I married you.
You knelt down and you married me;
we were as seeds: into the land
you drew me and you carried me;
and each one’s life was near at hand.

Each one’s life was near at hand.
I bedded you; you bedded me
into the Earth. I was unmanned
and you unwomaned: dead were we.
You me buried and I you
into the land of our close growing.
Thus was sown one life from two
into a future of Earth’s showing.

Into a future of Earth’s showing
a plant came dreaming; and broke loose
upon a day of summer blowing,
all Earth’s wildness then at truce.
Yet all earth’s softness was at war
as one plant thrust its leafy green
into the open – and we saw
what heaven and earth had left unseen –

yet which now reached the tenderest green
that rough things on this Earth can know.
Now it was living and was seen.
A healthy roughness soon would grow –
but now, this day of summer blowing,
a plant was given us, light-caressed,
turning towards light from our sowing.
Thus in our darkness we were blessed.

For this was our plant, this our child –
in tending it we are re-born.
But yet all round us is the wild
night: we do not feel the dawn
Let the world hide us in our knowing
that this is real: the new plant’s birth
will let day travel for us, growing
into the shelter of the Earth.