Night
Silence known by the light tap
Of rain, of after-rain
Shedding from leaves.
Night known by the star outside,
And dark clouds rimmed
By the less-dark sky.
The day known
By its uncoiling down through cells,
Slowly, into silence and night.
Body known by the press of cover
On limb, of limb on sheet,
On bed, on soil and rock and Earth.
None of it to last, not silence
Or night, or cloud or star,
Or day or body or planet;
Silence a ring I have made
Against cars and planes;
Night a contrivance
Against surrounding light.
Alix Greenwood writes: I am a British lesbian, white, middle-class. Some of my poems have been published in Sinister Wisdom and the radical feminist journal Rain and Thunder. In memory and appreciation of the late Fran Day, former editor of Sinister Wisdom, who encouraged so many lesbians to write, and with love to her widow, Roxanna.
