This Night

This familiar night is here again,
after many days and many nights,
after many rains in midsummer wetness,
after another summer that just finished
even before it began.

I must say, I must say how I had waited
for that hour of infinite meeting, besides a dusty road
under a dark sky, in a place that was my own.
Where summers and winters were equally welcome,
equally romantic, equal peace.

And this music, Fingal's Cave, alien to my unmusical ears,
like a town bereft of rain, some old unsheltered woman
disowned by all, counting the stars against a stony sky
and losing it all, all again. This unmusic is my night,
and I hear it despite all this rain.

This is a different night, I must admit, night of poison,
of slow sleep. This pain, not pain is only memory,
only surmise, only regret, only deep regret.
This is the pain of having waited for and having lost,
a moment to rub deep into my eyes the faces of love.