Smoke hangs indistinct amid the fog
That slips along the streets of this
My one-time home.

It is too dark to be the hour
That presently sounds from distant mission bells.

The Poet’s words sound silently,
Indifferently in my mind’s ear:
“Since we have not learned
How not to want,
We’ve had to learn, by waiting,
How to wait.”

Hard-pressed, the nightingale’s words—no, her chorus—
‘light resonantly—as they often do—
Upon the brittle winter branchwork of my brain:
‘The night seems darkest now,’
She sings, though not her song precisely.

Yes: my reply, and presently a lie.
No: my teaching, though at the moment overreaching.

‘Are you depressed right now?’
That was her real question.
I do not know the answer, though
I think that may be what
Julian, John, and Theresa thought
As they marked the passing hours as I
Presently note the time as well.

Still, this intimation of a beaten sermon
May yet ring true
As both my answers to that question,
As the hour whose advent the mission bells report.

It can still be so that it is yet too dark to be that hour
And yet that hour be so;
And so
The bird will sing
The bell will ring
To find some twilight benediction
Amid the fog and the premature evening