The Poet: Jeanne Lohmann, "Questions Before Dark"

"Questions Before Dark"

"Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, 

consider your altered state: 

has this day changed you?  

Are the corners sharper or rounded off? 

 Did you live with death?  

Make decisions that quieted?  

Find one clear word that fit? 

 At the sun's midpoint did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites the possible? 

 What did you learn from things you dropped

 and picked up and dropped again? 

Did you set a straw parallel to the river, 

let the flow carry you downstream?"

- Jeanne Lohmann,

"The Light of Invisible Bodies"