Herbert Woodward Martin--Night

Herbert Woodward MARTIN has been The University of Dayton's poet-in-residence for over two decades. Martin has published four books of poetry and a monograph on Paul Laurence Dunbar. He is currently seeking a publisher for a book-length collection of poems about people with AIDS and a long series of poems called "Final W" about his mother dying from cancer. His poems have been published in academic publications and such national magazines as Poetry and the George Washington Review.

NIGHT
The night is a harsh encroachment;
It afflicts the eyes whose lids
Like iron muscles abruptly are
Forced to close to extinguish
That abrasive light which moves
With the speed of sudden pain.
It is a dark which seeps blindly
Under door jambs and glides
Effortlessly through panes
or transoms into the clear visions
Of our lives. There are no noticeable
Pastels to notice like imperceptible
Gestures of love and sorrow observed
From a safe distance. Sometimes
Light is so violent against the
Dark, it can only be contained
Within deceptively tightened pupils.
It is then that the eye shuts down
That sense begins to mount fences
That any illumination
Approaching those dark holes
We call sight.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NEXT PAGE