Originally published in The Green Wave (1948)
The sky behind the farthest shore
Is darker than I go to sleep.
Blackness of water, the crater at the core,
The many blacknesses begin to gleam.
Rivers of darkness bind me to this land
While overhead the moon goes far to shine,
And now nothing nobody is my own.
The motion of streams glitters before my eyes:
Sources and entrances, they lie no more,
Now darkly keep, now flow now bright
Until all wandering end, a hand
Shine, and the leadings homeward of delight
Seem to begin my deepest sleep
To make a lake of dream.
© Muriel Rukeyser