Into the Dark

by Wendy McVicker

Summer evenings on the terrace

as the risen dark

flowed in, phosphorescence

of fireflies, and heat

lightning startling

the horizon.

Blue shadows eddied,

thickened, hid

the creek that wandered

like the grown–ups'

conversation, pooling

around tumbled rocks,

pouring on —

talk of war, nuclear

disarmament, protests

in the far –off city.

Starlight melted

through the leaves,

smearing lips and arms

with silver,

and the children

sprawled in the fading grass, or ran

down steep fields, chasing

the bright moon of a baseball

into the dark.

Hardly anyone is left

from those days—

so many leapt,

or fallen, into this tide

washing at our feet —

indigo streaked

with distant gold,

and shadows shifting —

the tall shapes

of the thunder gods

tramping through the dark —