"Night" by Louise Bogan

Bioluminescence, Vaadhoo Island, The Maldives

The cold remote islands

And the blue estuaries

Where what breathes, breathes

The restless wind of the inlets,

And what drinks, drinks

The incoming tide;

Where shell and weed

Wait upon the salt wash of the sea,

And the clear nights of stars

Swing their lights westward

To set behind the land;

Where the pulse clinging to the rocks

Renews itself forever;

Where, again on cloudless nights,

The water reflects

The firmament's partial setting;

--O remember

In your narrowing dark hours

That more things move

Than blood in the heart.

"Night" by Louise Bogan from The Blue Estuaries.

© Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968.