Returning

. . . the trace of the fugitive gods,
the track into the dark
of the world’s night.
      — Martin Heidegger

Coming home, I feel the night
withdraw.  The soft, thin edge
of the planet’s shadow
angled low across the sky.
Dawn ten minutes away,

The sun still below the horizon’s rim,
its light being bent
to a brilliant orange eye
by the winter air.

Treetops and rooflines emerge
from the void, like a ship
on some vast sea of shadow
trailing off to the west,
then back into night, falling out
through the flat black forever.

Hear it: