A Broken Code

Now that the daylight dies away,

By all thy grace and love,

Thee, Maker of the world, we pray

To watch our bed above.

Let dreams depart and phantoms fly,

The offspring of the night,

Keep us, like shrines, beneath thine eye,

Pure in our foe’s despite.

                                       Universalis Hymn

Late night,

after the echo of what was 

spoken and argued 

had settled 

into the mortars of sleep,

my brother and I would fall 

out our windows

onto the heavy dew 

and glinting blades of grass

like birds from a mangled nest 

in a tossing tree.

We would run through yards 

 and clenching shadows-- 

 holding up our bright- 

white butterfly nets 

into the intangibility

of the deep-

blue air-- 

luminous torches

parading the opening 

of our strange, nocturnal 

games. 

We would run to separate hill tops of our rolling lane,

across the bricks of summer heat, 

each standing alone

against the distance between us, 

against the rules and eerie-empty streets  

 as we began our encrypted 

correspondence:

waving our nets once for “a” 

twice for “b” and so on, 

pausing between letters, 

spelling out a mute word 

into the absconding hour;

  

between the funnels of light 

and dark pavements of our fear;

 beneath a Bull, a Queen, 

Orion’s belt and club, 

beneath the constellation’s conspiracy, 

beneath our galaxy glittering,

like eyes of the dead 

saints, 

sifting over us

light from stardust  

all the same: 

               

each on a separate hill, 

signing into the nests of darkness

and childhood, 

a broken code 

of loneliness 

and loss--

of love 

and uncomprehending.