When Landscape Evaporates Into Night

Twilight Leading to the Liquid Hour

Nocturne for the Liquid Hour

James Hart 

This is the day’s long liquid hour
when floating time silhouettes itself
like sea lace among black coral trees
skirting the dark reef of distant hills,
long lavender waves wash seamlessly
between the earth’s deep darkening bed
and the sky’s full shell of muted pearl,
and at this moment we’re four souls
shaping our silences like perfect pearls
inside our car, a safe shell on wheels
rolling homeward toward deeper hues,
and perhaps an old appropriate song
plays low on the radio, but none of us
hear the words or even seem to care,
for what words can matter just now
as we breathe within this liquid hour
while time silts a seabed around us,
a few passing lights wink like fish
releasing air from their magical gills,
dark waters close as we swim through,
care colors to lost pinks and pearls,
and the world is wordless as it furls
us in a shell of black momentary bliss,
time sweeping us home by liquid night.


(Poem from an unpublished manuscript
entitled Somewhere West of Never)