Sign in  |  Register

The New Criterion

It operates as a refuge for a civilizing element in short supply in contemporary America: honest criticism
- The Wall Street Journal

Poems

February 2000

Little porch at night

by Gibbons Ruark

Pull up a porch chair next to this chaise longue.
Tell me the empty dark will fill with voices
And talk to me before I end my song.

  

A summer night, and something has gone wrong
To rob the mild air of familiar faces.
Pull up a porch chair. Next to this chaise longue

  

A mother should be standing with her long
Hair tucked into a bun. Unwind those tresses
And talk to me before I end my song.

  

That vacant angle where a hammock hung
Adopts the whole moon in its loneliness.
Pull up a porch chair. Next to this chaise longue.

  

Summon the fireflies, matches struck and gone,
The Morse code of the stars who’ve lost their places,
And talk to me before I end my song,

  

For down there in the shallows should be strung
A taut line from a father to the sea he fishes.

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase

Subscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions)

Subscribe to TNC (Online only)

Purchase article credit and clip this article

If you already have an account login first

Gibbons Ruark


more from this author

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 18 February 2000, on page 29

Copyright © 2009 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Little-porch-at-night-2717
rate this article for your user profile

E-mail to friend


The New Criterion

You might also enjoy

Most popular

view more >

download
first delivery

The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices

New from The New Criterion:
40 page special issue
on our conference

"Free speech in
an age of Jihad"

Events

July 16 2009

OPEN CHICAGO EVENT


Webcasts

"Taking the Occasion," poems by Daniel Brown
The eighth annual New Criterion Poetry Prize winner reads selections from his book at an evening with the Friends of The New Criterion.


Jay Nordlinger on the future of classical music, from an evening with the Friends of The New Criterion.


A profile of the abstract painter Thornton WIllis
Directed by Michael Feldman. Featuring Thornton Willis and commentary by James Panero. Produced in coordination with Willis's March 2009 exhibition at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York