A Nighttime Stroll

While I marvel at the starred, phantom sky—
where silver clouds scud and the pale moon beams
in an epic ether, tinted ink blue—
a weary, worthy town slumbers and dreams
of fortune, of flight, or falling through space.
Where the air smells of pine sap and wood smoke,
fireflies blink, the dirt path leads into trees,
and pondside bullfrogs call mates with hoarse croaks.
When descending the hill through low grasses—
that run to the foot of a hemlock stand,
whose spectral shadows hide the wispy way—
there come a turn and vista of the land.
There lie the distant village and spired church,
the quiet houses, and earthy, quaint lanes
surrounded by arable wheat pastures:
rolling hills topped with rippling grains.
While on a solitary nighttime stroll
through rustling grass and the brisk, biting breeze,
in view of an old, wild, gleaming river,
there comes a worn, welcome feeling of ease.