The silence thickens in the midnight calm,
motionless the wet leaf bending down.
Gray shadows sit in stillness all around.
The furnace whines, its whir the only sound.

Likewise the evening passes without harm,
the house and hill enveloping the mind
with peace. See how the darkness seems to find
no need for fears of any human kind.

And I accept the midnight and its charm,
Will not intimidate the mind with doubt.
The icy winter seems to be shut out,
And darkness lurks in shadows hereabout.

Old winter with its intimate cool balm
incloses weariness in thought and dream,
wraps up the ghost of autumn seam by seam
and turns the year around.

                                 Old endless theme
Of seasons, of weather, wind and calm,
immaculate white musings mixed with black
and terrible memory, the incessant lack
of meaning and of means of turning back.

See how the year unwinds without alarm
Minute by minute, day by day, it passes
as sand that falls from ancient hourglasses
and leaves behind old turmoils.

                                      It harasses
my soul with memory that would disarm
this tranquil hour with all remembering
of bitterness, of pain, of suffering,
of death-like void and every human thing

save this gray verse transfiguring the charm
of midnight with all unmentioned fear.
doubtful that this or any other year
can call away the sadness settling here.

Jay Cohen

From: POEM #39, 1980