Melancholy at Night

Each evening at bedtime
I go out of doors, winter or
summer for a breath of fresh air
and to look at the sky. I always
look up, is the sky star-filled
or cloud-covered, or does the moon
waxing or waning slip through
misty veils like a bride’s face
on her wedding day? Some nights
an almost intolerable melancholy
overwhelms me and I wish I were
an old Jew who could free his
tears against a wailing wall.
My sadness seems to grow from the loss
of relatives, friends, neighbors who
in leaving took part of my life
with them. Time cuts down the years
and lays them in swaths
like the grass of a new-mown field.
I mourn for their sweat and work, 
their anger and love and anxiety,
for the rambler rose by the porch,
the oatfield ready to harvest,
fallen trees, the hard elbows of
their need for a place in
the sun, for their busy hands
and minds, for the spirit of
their day, all lost in a vacancy
called the past. And let me wail
like an old Jew for the boy I thought
I was and go to bed comforted.