The Town Is Still Asleep

The town is still asleep. The sky is pale with quickening light. Quenched, the long night of stars Swirls under the earth, but one, That silver planet, Venus, holds Over the ice-haired lawns A vernal promise: that love is not lost.

Walk through the streets With birds and the clatter-clack Of streetlights as they change, A little tremble as the chill of night Dies in a sunburst from the trees, A vacant house whose owner dies, A fallen elm, an abscess in the line Of shops, a broken pane. I hold My book which is all I may carry away, Which reads that love will come again.