Look East, Look West

As the sun goes down, the moon comes up! This will give you some idea of the tranquil evening just passed. Of course I ran out to shoot the moon, even though I don't have the proper tripod and such. You can just see the light from our windows in the picture with the last of the sunset. I have to check my camera lens for the smirch in the sky.

I have copied and pasted the poem below (why it has a different look) from the blog Wild Fire, by Patrick Burke, so I wouldn't have to type it and because my book, Next to Last Things by Kunitz is upstairs. It is another poem from this time of twilight, and I think, a very successful and memorable poem.



Lamplighter: 1914

by Stanley Kunitz


What I remember most was not

the incident at Sarajevo,

but the first flying steamkettle

puffing round the bend,

churning up the dirt

between the rocky pastures

as it came riding high

on its red wheels

in a blare of shining brass;

and my bay stallion snorting,

rearing in fright, bolting,

leaving me sprawled on the ground;

and our buggy

careening out of sight

those loose reins dangling,

racing toward its rendezvous

with Hammond’s stone wall

in an explosion of wood and flesh,

the crack of smashed cannon bones.

Who are these strangers

sprung out of the fields?

It is my friend, almost my brother,

who points a gun

to the crooked head.


Once I was a lamplighter

on the Quinnapoxet roads,

making the rounds with Prince,

who was older than I and knew

by heart each of our stations,

needing no whoa of command,

nor a tug at his bridle.

That was the summer I practiced

sleight-of-hand and fell asleep

over my picture-books of magic.

Toward dusk, at crossings

and at farmhouse gates,

under the solitary iron trees

I stood on the rim of the buggy wheel

and raised my enchanter’s wand,

with its tip of orange flame,

to the gas mantles in their cages,

touching them, one by one,

till the whole countryside bloomed.


********


And here is tonight's moon! Remember to look at the twilit or moonlit, or starlit sky, before you SLEEP TIGHT!