Out of any two thoughts I have, one is devoted to death. - Charles Wright

"Sitting at Night on the Front Porch"

I’m here, on the dark porch, restyled in my mother’s chair.
10:45 and no moon.
Below the house, car lights
Swing down, on the canyon floor, to the sea.

In this they resemble us,
Dropping like match flames through the great void
Under our feet.
In this they resemble her, burning and disappearing.

Everyone’s gone
And I’m here, sizing the dark, saving my mother’s seat.

What we are given in dreams we write as blue paint,
Or messages to the clouds.
At evening we wait for the rain to fall and the sky to clear.
Our words are words for the clay, uttered in undertones,
Our gestures salve for the wind.

We sit out on the earth and stretch our limbs,
Hoarding the little mounds of sorrow laid up in our hearts. — Charles Wright, closing lines to “Homage to Paul Cézanne,” The Southern Cross: Poems (Random House, 1981)

All those nights looking up at the sky, wanting to be there, away from the grief of being here.