11.23.2022

you will sleep within my love within the room within the dark

When I cannot be with you 
I will send my love (so much 
is allowed to human lovers) 
to watch over you in the dark— 
a winged small presence 
who never sleeps, however long 
the night. Perhaps it cannot 
protect or help, I do not know, 
but it watches always, and so 
you will sleep within my love 
within the room within the dark. 
And when, restless, you wake 
and see the room palely lit 
by that watching, you will think, 
“It’s only dawn,” and go 
quiet to sleep again. 
 
[Wendell Berry {1934- } 'For an Absence', from New Collected Poems]

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