Rebecca Perry Four poems Poetry

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A Nocturnal
after John Donne’s A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie's Day, being the shortest day

It is the year’s midnight and the dark, short day is hers also, Lucy’s, who will barely give us a blink of sun. The light has long since died and only hints of it hang in puddles and through the branches of very dark trees.

The early nightfall calls for silence
without even meaning to and we all secretly fear
this darkness might be perpetual. We’re urged
to get half an hour of fresh air while there’s still light,
take Vitamin D. The sky is an eyelid
we cannot stop closing. The city feels invisible –
our high rise lights and street lights and
fly by nights, not programmed to come on so early,
are little beast eyes waiting to glow in a cave.
The umbrellas from yesterday’s heavy rainfall
and fast winds hang crooked and broken
from door handles and the mouth of dustbins.
They are the only bats we have in the city,
or the only ones we allow ourselves to believe in.

Published by the Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester

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