Originally published in The Speed of Darkness (1968)
is my concern. That’s the moment,
when I lean on my elbows out the windowsill
and feel the city among its time-zones, among its seas,
among its late night news, the pouring in
of everything meeting, wars, dreams, winter night.
Light in snowdrifts causing the young girls
lying awake to fall in love tonight
alone in bed; or the little children
half world over tonight rained on by fire–that’s us–
calling on somebody–that’s us–to come
and help them.
Now I see at the boundary of darkness
extreme of moonlight.
Alone. All my hopes
scattered in people quarter world away
half world away, out of all hearing.
Tell myself:
Trust in experience. And in the rhythms.
The deep rhythms of your experience.
(c) Muriel Rukeyser
