The Very Next Day

Twilight in the suburbs. Today’s report
Is that everything’s sliding to the worse

Again. The pandemic’s been strengthening,
Somewhat, the protests weakening, somewhat.

Watering the sunflowers in the back
And waiting for the return of the cat,

Brushing a few ants off shoes and pant legs
While being trailed by a pair of robins

Around the lawn that we’re all borrowing,
The thought crops up—twilight’s the most common

Of calendrical events possible—
Twice a day, without fail, both directions,

Before the morning and before the night,
Guarantor good as any—It goes on.

Why would twilight be associated
With the singular end of anything?

If you say it’s the twilight of the gods,
Of faith, of empire, of democracy,

Of America, or of poetry,
You don’t mean to suggest this will repeat

Regularly, back again tomorrow,
Next twilight scheduled for just before dawn—

No, your implication is, It’s the end,
Or nearly, of whatever you just named,

Twilight of an Age, never to return.
Does some part of us know we’re full of it—

That we deploy “twilight” in the hushed hope
That this really is no more than twilight—

These suburbs, their gods, this democracy,
Light, poetry, the cat—It all comes back?