The Golden Darkness/How Many

HOW MANY?

How many stars have the skies folded away,
Yet never a dusk will sail across the blue,
But leaves a wake of starlight shimmering.

How many autumns blowing like great waves
Have drawn after them the greenery and sound,
Yet never will earth swirl nearer to the light,
But color lifts her head out of the rain,
And melody rustles the wind from her wings.

How many shadows nesting under clouds
Have joined the surging darkness of the sea,
Yet never will a gold day ripple in the wind,
But the shadows are climbing back mysteriously,
And never a strange stirring in the twilight of all tears,
But a shadow looks out of some woman’s eyes.

Blue skies silently closing in on pale stars . . .
Autumns lost beneath a vast hush of snow . . .
And shadows dumb—dumb throughout all the years . . .
This is the silence speaking, voicing
Beauty that lives forever and forever dies.