A Screened Porch In The Country

All of them are sittingInside a lamp of coarse wireAnd being in all directionsShed upon darkness,Their bodies softening to shadow, untilThey come to rest out in the yardIn a kind of blurred golden countryIn which they more deeply lieThan if they were being createdOf Heavenly light.

Where they are floating beyondThemselves, in peace,Where they have laid downTheir souls and not known it,The smallest creatures,As every night they do,Come to the edge of themAnd sing, if they can,Or, if they can’t, simply shineTheir eyes back, sitting on haunches,

Pulsating and thinking of music.Occasionally, something weightlessTouches the screenWith its body, dies,Or is unmurmuringly hurt,But mainly nothing happensExcept that a family continuesTo be laid downIn the midst of its nightly creatures,Not one of which openly comes

Into the golden shadowWhere the people are lying,Emitted by their own houseSo humanly that they becomeMore than human, and enter the placeOf small, blindly singing things,Seeming to rejoicePerpetually, without effort,Without knowing whyOr how they do it.

From Drowning with Others (1962)