Goodnight
By David Ferry
Lying in bed and waiting to find out
Whatever is going to happen: the window shade
Making its slightest sound as the night wind,
Outside, in the night, breathes quietly on it;
It is parental hovering over the infantile;
Something like that; it is like being a baby,
And over the sleep of the baby there is a father,
Or mother, breathing, hovering; the streetlight light
In the nighttime branches breathing quietly too;
Altering; realtering; it is the body breathing;
The crib of knowing: something about what the day
Will bring; and something about what the night will hold,
Safely, at least for the rest of the night, I pray.
Copyright Credit: David Ferry, “Goodnight” from Of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999). Copyright © 1999 by David Ferry. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Source: Of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations (The University of Chicago Press, 1999)