This poem is taken from PN Review 4, Volume 4 Number 4, July - September 1978.

Two Poems

Val Warner

ACROSS THE YARD

It is the moment of the lighting of
the lamps, whose flair and of the Lares flared,
flaming switch is homecoming and Laura's theme:
dusk falls at six, the lighting of the year
standing a while while dark creeps up on us
whose homecoming's across the royal parks,
departures nothing all over Europe

the lights go up, dusk falling down again.
Chance of illumination like the sun
picks out a rainbow chequering among
day's rows of warder eyes of tenements
keeping the day, their window on their world
twilit, whose salmon, peaches, oranges
glowing against a donkey coat, dun dusk

darkened to yellow and white panes of light
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