Night With Her Train Of Stars

Each night is a little death

lost to the secrecy of sleep,

twilight beckoned

by the last larks in chorus

to the coming darkness.

Wings billowed, dusked to return

to the deep woad of bilberry

and sanctuary of bracken,

nests among the protection

of poisoned fronds

for the nourishment of rest.

To call it the West, 

a recall to the earth,

which across millennia,

our fists and feet

have pounded for answers,

only to be rewarded 

with silence. Shhh, 

putti, quiet, she says,

grief will turn to memory

as each morning 

does not forget the stars. 
 
This is another ekphrastic poem based on this painting by E R Hughes called Night with her Train of Stars. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Robert_Hughes_-_Night_with_her_Train_of_Stars_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg It is poppies that she is scattering to represent sleep and death. 

Hughes painted it in response to this poem: https://reasonandmeaning.com/2014/11/06/3356/