Tonight, coming home,
my place opened a warm space
for me;
a sudden way to rest;
a still life entitled
”Sigh of relief
with book shelves and paintings”;
the many years standing guard
around my refuge

I've usually felt I've had to pull up
and get elsewhere,
wherever I was,
but not tonight

Right now, here is here;
a rare sensation
with the body in its midst;
the indoors pleasant
and fall-time fresh;

all the books keeping still
on the shelves

Perhaps they're sleeping,
with all their letters, sentences,
paragraphs, poems, science reports,
short stories and novels
as their lucid dreams

Perchance they interpret
the writing on the page
as the ancients read the writing on the wall

I lie back onto my bed of nails
and feel the soothing warmth
of the endorphine,
reading David Hinton's China Root

while the voices
of the Eritrean kids next door
embellish midnight 'tween Saturday
and Sunday
with starry vocalisations
that make this late hour happy