Raab, "The Night Sky"

In the book you've been reading

it's the end of the season.

The shades have been drawn

in that house by the lake,

and a woman is standing

alone on the porch. She thinks,

There's no sense pretending

I could have been happy here.

A few notes from a piano

float across the water,

and you wonder if that isn't

more than is needed --

how the music suggests

the idea of change

gathering in the distance.

But not for her. She'll return

to her father, who drinks too much,

having failed as a doctor, then

as a farmer. She can see

him asleep in his chair

after dinner, a small fire

in the grate, snow in the garden.

And on the table, the bills

to be paid. He'd be lost

in bitterness without her,

which she understands. So this

is a story about accommodation,

how quiet feelings come to matter

and finally suffice.

She watches the wind fall back

across the water. And you think:

But she deserves to be happy.

Perhaps, in the final few pages,

something unexpected will occur.

Perhaps only the moon will rise.Yet her life is this book

and when the moon appears

at last in the night sky

that may be all the story requires.

Now her thoughts are as real

for you as they must be

for her, the way it was

when you first fell in love.

You could be standing beside her.

She could be waiting

to be touched. But why

is he waiting, she wonders,

if he knows how I feel?

Lawrence Raab