Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Gregory O\'Donoghue

Nocturne

Nocturne

Nocturne

Midnight. Only myself and a white-haired woman
have been set down at a dismantled rural station.
I watch her cross the tracks and fade
up a slope, vanish in a blur of conifers.

Lingering near the solitary building –
abandoned sandstone that tells me to move on,
that here is nowhere, that I’m travelling –
I listen, savouring the night stillness.

It is the aftertraces of flaring spirits
who’ve leapt after diminishing carriages,
it must be these making the quietness quicken.

And I’m numbed a moment at seeming to see
the snow-haired woman returning; it’s only
a chalky cat stealing in a crouch across
the moonlight, unless I am doubly mistaken.
Close

Nocturne

Midnight. Only myself and a white-haired woman
have been set down at a dismantled rural station.
I watch her cross the tracks and fade
up a slope, vanish in a blur of conifers.

Lingering near the solitary building –
abandoned sandstone that tells me to move on,
that here is nowhere, that I’m travelling –
I listen, savouring the night stillness.

It is the aftertraces of flaring spirits
who’ve leapt after diminishing carriages,
it must be these making the quietness quicken.

And I’m numbed a moment at seeming to see
the snow-haired woman returning; it’s only
a chalky cat stealing in a crouch across
the moonlight, unless I am doubly mistaken.

Nocturne

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
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