SUMMER NIGHT
by Michael Langston

A warm and windswept summer night
Fills the world with its pale, dim light;
The branching trees surrounding I
Eclipse dark portions of the sky;
Their dancing shapes upon the eye
Sway and sigh.

While in my mind the past I see
In stilled and silent memory:
A fallen snow, the barren trees,
This place the way it used to be.
All dull and indistinct are they;
The color of the snow is grey,
Now having less a presence there
Than given to the summer air.

Yes, dull and indistinct they are,
Absent and removed so far:
The fallen snow, the barren tree,
And love’s cold and distant unreality.