Pavane for Sleeping Children

by Deborah Pope

The children are dreaming away.
They crouch in the next room,
the night is sorrow and wind.
I left their father years ago.

They crouch in the next room,
they take all I have.
I left their father years ago.
Silence is an old address.

They take all I have,
closed eyes and a heavy tongue.
Silence is an old address,
I keep secrets from everyone I love,

closed eyes and a heavy tongue,
so they will not leave me.
I keep secrets from everyone I love,
they give me gifts I do not deserve.

So they will not leave me
I make a trail. Only I know the way.
They give me gifts I do not deserve,
what am I to do with them all?

I make a trail, only I know the way.
I feed them with words, stitch them in tears,
what am I to do with them all?
I hoard what I can.

I feed them with words, stitch them in tears.
The night is sorrow and wind.
I hoard what I can.
The children are dreaming away.

DEBORAH POPE has published four collections of poetry, most recently Take Nothing (2020) from the University of Pittsburgh Press, which is also re-issuing her first collection, Fanatic Heart, in their Classic Contemporary Series. Her poems have been in many journals, including Georgia Review, Triquarterly, Southern Review, Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, Birmingham Review, and Poetry East. In 2019 she received the Robinson Jeffers Award.

 

Poem from Falling Out of the Sky (LSU Press, 1999).