4 AM, the moon down world is dark as the river's black volcanic bed outside my bamboo door. A knock wakes me. Fumbles of shoelaces, flashlight, clothes. I enter the night escorted by the river's invisible sibilants, track my guide's heels over stumbles of roots with my flashlight's circle until we must walk without it. In the jungle's moist shroud, surrounded by bat shrill gossiping we breathe the dark. A flick of flashlight spots the copper-penny eyes; spidery fingers clasp a branch. Among trees hung with watchful gleams my guide and I, compassed by our illumination, are bound by family resemblances to these hands and faces vanishing into leaves and dawn. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VISIONS: 4. A ROSE by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) AURENG-ZEBE, OR THE GREAT MOGUL: PROLOGUE by JOHN DRYDEN TO HIS MISTRESS OBJECTING TO HIM NEITHER TOYING OR TALKING by ROBERT HERRICK NEW FRIENDS AND OLD FRIENDS by JOSEPH PARRY BOTHWELL: PART 5 by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN ECLOGUE: FATHER COME HWOME by WILLIAM BARNES |