We did as we were told:
Put a pillow under her head-or else her feet-
To make the blood flood to her head-or else away from it–
Now she was set.
The sound she had made, falling,
The sound of furniture,
Had kept on,
in
the silence
Of everything except ourselves,
As we tugged her into position.
Now we too were silent.
It was as if God were taking a nap.
We waited for the world to be the world
And looked out, shyly, into the little lanes
I
That went off from the great dark highway, Mother's Highway,
And wondered whether we would ever take them
- And she came back to life, and we never took them.
The night has stopped breathing.
The moonlight streams up through the linden
From the street-lamp, and is printed upon heaven.
The floor and the Kerman on the floor
And the gifts on the Kerman
Are dark, but there is a patch of moonlight on the ceiling.
The moonlight comes to the fir
That stands meekly, a child in its nightgown,
In the midst of many shadows.
It has come to its father and mother
To wake them, for it is morning
In the child's dream; and the father wakes
And leads it back to its bed, and it never wakes.
