“The trees were set close and from the perimeter of that parcel of land I could not see the school hidden within them. Look up here, I thought I heard someone say to me. When I did look up, I saw that the branches overhead were without leaves, and through their intertwining mesh the sky was fully visible. How bright and dark it was at the same time. Bright with a high, full moon shining among the spreading clouds, and dark with the shadows mingling within those clouds—a slowly flowing mass of mottled shapes, a kind of unclean outpouring from the black sewers of space.”
“it is the deep-black-sky quiet time of night, which is the halfway time between the sun setting and the sun rising when even the night animals are quiet—as if they, like day animals, take a break in the middle of their work to rest.”
“The moon was low but not full. The men set out along the dock in conversation. As they dropped onto the dark beach, Simmons declared, ‘There can be no better place in the world than this.’ Henderson had to agree. The beach was beautiful. The stars lit the sand and balmy air rode in as the waves washed up on paradise”
“Where all was burnt to ash before them no fires were to be had and the nights were long and dark and cold beyond anything they d yet encountered. Cold to crack the stones. To take your life.”
“Yo me salgo desnudo a la calle, maduro de versos perdidos. I step naked into the street ripe with lost poems.”
“He rose and stood tottering in that cold dark with his arms held out for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings. An old chronicle. To seek out the upright. No fall but preceded by a declination... Upright to what? Something nameless in the night, lode or matrix. To which he and the stars were common satellite. Like the great pendulum in its rotunda scribing through the long day movements of the universe of which you may say it knows nothing and yet know it must.”
“between you and i, i found just the sky, a sky with a million of stars, but i can see just the moon, not because it s the biggest one but it s the closest and the shiniest between all. so i keep talking to that moon at night, hoping one day will talk with me, before the sun come back or the storm hide all.”
“She didn t fear the night, though she found little comfort in its dark hours.”
“Rubbing noses with me, she laughed, and I swear the Elysian night sang with the sound of it.”
“The lamp hummed: Regard the moon, La lune ne garde aucune rancune, She winks a feeble eye, She smiles into corners. She smoothes the hair of the grass. The moon has lost her memory. A washed-out smallpox cracks her face, Her hand twists a paper rose, That smells of dust and old Cologne, She is alone With all the old nocturnal smells That cross and cross across her brain. The reminiscence comes Of sunless dry geraniums And dust in crevices, Smells of chestnuts in the streets, And female smells in shuttered rooms, And cigarettes in corridors And cocktail smells in bars.”
“All the best secrets are told at night.”
“With night s Dim veil and blue I will cover my eyes, I will bind close my eyes that are So weary.”
“The night is the blink of a day”
“Still as On windless nights The moon-cast shadows are, So still will be my heart when I Am dead.”
“All men are brothers in the night.”
“The night was so balmy that breathing ceased to be a habitual sensation, becoming much closer to something like the gaseous ingestion of a mango, the velvet caress of a hand or the soft skin of a fresh peach. Sleeping, lying down or sitting up, was, on that night, a divine human penitence, a miracle unexpected and unrealized, intuitive and peaceful in a unique opportunity.”
“It is unnecessary to heighten the glory of day by comparing it with the preceding twilight.”