Night Freedom

The blinds go up.
My house breathes air.
Now everywhere
the town about
has shut up shop.
I can go out
and solve the streets.
My steps king down
the proud old stones.
Go further out,
past back-turned doors,
to where a park,
at ease and grand,
can make one stand.
Review the trees.
Now the short cut,
in less free state,
to one’s own roadway,
one’s own gate.
The gift of dark
withdrawn, now sit
uncrowned, and so
forgetting it.

But clocks are broken.
I have found
tonight, just once,
I will stay crowned.
For when tonight
the blinds were up
the wind puffed news –
strong-soft, complete –
of sureness past
the clanging stones,
sky-openness
past thrusting trees,
and paths of life
not to be solved.

So he slept on,
my ten-week son,
whose sleep so free
I’d chanced to see.