Night Travelers

Cathy read part of this poem in my writing group tonight. I think it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. It's from the book American Noise by Campbell McGrath.

Night Travellers via the New Yorker, click to enlarge

Just read this excerpt:

..the ghosts of evening loosed from back-yard barbecues

as from the window I hear the song of baseball cards in bicycle spokes and crickts in the neighbors' lawn,

lost summers of crabgrass, resin of oak leaves, taste of chalk from the window screen

as I wait for the sound of my father's car in the driveway, Ford Falcon, 1963,

as even now I imagine the children are sent to bed with patio voices and the urn-light of fireflies in jelly-jar sarcophagi, 

all the children in all the suburbs, tens of thousands, millions of them, rising into the air in striped pajamas,

hovering like midget astronauts, tiny inmates in coonskin caps, convict stars above a nation of lawn chairs and tinkling ice cubes

and sprinklers whirling like tireless apostles, the beautiful sprinklers casting their nets, whispering silver apologies to the dust.

-- from "Night Travellers" by Campbell McGrath