I count three shooting stars
as the porch swing rocks to the rhythm
of one desperately lovesick frog.
I count three shooting stars
as the porch swing rocks to the rhythm
of one desperately lovesick frog.
Three thirty-three in the morning
I awaken, drenched in sweat.
I turn on the fan,
waiting for sleep to return
wishing that you were beside me.
You gather me into you
Entangling limbs and
Tickling kisses on the neck.
.
Your breath tangles in my hair
Escaping through quivering tendrils
Trembling into the night.
.
Your heartbeats drum against my back
Exquisite timpani.
Time stops.
Night breathes
its peace in
shimmering air
dusted with winter.
.
Night breathes
its silence in
rustling wishes
between sheets.
.
Night breathes
an invitation in
a lingering look
over the shoulder.
.
Night breathes
a promise in
peace,
silence,
invitation.
There is so much to be done, there is so much that can be done. One person — a Raoul Wallenberg, an Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Jr. — one person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.
(Elie Wiesel in Night p. 120)
I have have read Wiesel’s book Night, which is thin, and yet packs a far more powerful punch than many fat works. For non-fiction, his quote is clearly true: what you leave out is as significant as what’s left in. For fiction, however, when everything has to be put in from the author’s imagination, a whole world must be created. There is no rock to take away from. There is only dirt, which must be formed into being, like men formed from clay.