Near-End of Day
.
We arrive at the near-end of a day,
its rush of sundown, a deep current
searching to root in the earth.
.
The moon shines on a door,
through extended shadows
like a storm walking into a field.
.
We must hurry home
when night tethers to the ground
its last breath of light.
.
An owl swerves in the silence,
sharing with an unfortunate field mouse
what he’s learned from the darkness.
.
We hear what is taken, what is missing.
On any given day, at any moment,
suddenness happens —
.
Something is out of place.
In winter, light goes so far out,
we think it may never come back.
.
Martin Willitts Jr, edits the Comstock Review, judges New York State Fair Poetry Contest. Nominated for 17 Pushcart and 13 Best of the Net awards. Winner of the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, 2016, Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2020. His 25 chapbooks include the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections including Blue Light Award “The Temporary World.” His new book is “All Wars Are the Same War” (FutureCycle Press, 2022).
North of Oxford 