THE NIGHT PLUMS

Years afterward in the dark

in the middle of winter I saw them again

the wild sloes on the terraces

flowering in the small hours

after a season of hard cold and the turning

of the night and of the year and of years

when almost all whom I had known there

in other days had gone

and the stones of the barnyard were buried

in sleep and the animals were no more

I watched the white blossoms open

in their own hour naked and luminous

greeting the darkness in silence

with their ancient fragrance