This Evening in Paradise
By John Herlihy

There is nothing more but to lay down to sleep.
The body is beginning to close down,
Like a shop in the bazaar at sunset,
The customers have all gone home.
The eyes fuzzy and heavy, earth sewn.
But earlier this evening I was truly in paradise;
There is no other way to describe it.
Feelings still linger providing a glimmer of hope,
As I drift away out of the world and into sleep,
Like disappearing far into some fathomless deep.
But earlier this evening, before I forget,
Some gate opened inside my eye.
I began to see everything as if on the sly.
My surroundings revealed for what they truly are.
Fireflies looking like individual stars,
Come down to shine their infinitesimal light,
Right into the very heart of my eye,
My sight suddenly awakening to the beauty in flight.

Then there’s the moon,
A winking half moon in someone’s pay.
It seems as though it has lost its way,
Climbing over the horizon like an ancient barque,
Its pale light embarrassed and borrowed.
It spills its mystery from an overturned arc.
Tell me its real; let me reach out and feel;
It looks silvery and slight, like rain washing the night.
Then there’s the snow, softening in its glow;
It too shines with unexpected light,
Diamond dust that shatters the peace of the night,
With this silent invasion of heavenly delight.
If this was all there is, it would be enough;
Everything I see contains elements of the right stuff.
For a moment, I have forgotten my petty woes,
Even my body has disappeared from my head to my toes.
I have become an eye, solitary and aglow,
With the light of fireflies, the moon, the snow,
Telling me something I never expected to know.