Nights
There have been times, what with this and that,
when the whisper of words was not enough.
On some shelf of memory lies a misplaced summer,
one not stored away for later savoring.
Surely it ended early, with unexpected fogs,
with the wind sliding past through unmeasured darkness.
No voice could be enough, what with this and that,
and the hours falling faster.
– 1977
Paul Bowles Next to Nothing: Collected Poems 1926 - 1977, Black Sparrow Press, 1981.
