the night watch

Outdoors, like a false morning,

 Fog washes the pine trees. It 

 Shoulders against the windows,

 Spreading across their surface

 On its way upward. In this 

 Moment between sleep and thought 

 This holding back, I can hear 

 The fog start to rise, the slow 

 Memory of an ocean, 

 And I, like a ship, begin 

 To stir, to lurch in its swell, 

 And to move outward, beyond 

 The steel jetty, the lighthouse, 

 The red-flagged channel buoys,

 --Beyond, at last, sleep even--

 Into a deeper water,

 Pale, oracular, its waves

 Motionless, seagulls absent. 

~ Charles Wright

art by andrew wyeth