Seth Jani
Lullaby
You could destroy your gift easily enough.
The heart gets closed. The fire consumes everything.
The living word dissolves into air.
Everyone is like a garden.
They must be tended, cared for,
fed with sporadic rain.
If our lives were always golden
there’d be no place for the
mystery of death. But there it is
like two dark doors at the end of time.
Unwind the clock, let the hours grow spacious.
Witness the wheeling galaxies
flourish overhead.
There is love on those distant planets.
There is love in the bellies of stars.
Outside my window, some beautiful voice
calls from the moon-dark trees.
It’s like a mother signaling
from the empty porch to her only child:
It’s time now to end the story.
It’s time to come home and sleep.
About the writer:
Seth Jani currently resides in Seattle, Washington, and is the founder of Seven Circle Press. His work has been published widely in such places as The American Poetry Journal, The Chiron Review, The Comstock Review and El Portal. His full-length collection, Night Fable, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2018.
Image: Les enfants endormis by Evariste_Carpentier (1845-1922). Oil on canvas. 71 x 90 cm. Unknown date. Public domain.
