Night people

I figure the first poets
were night people
who entered the world in darkness
their day forever night

and so while others slept
they kept watch
against the rustle and glint
before it exploded
as roaring teeth
and they stayed alert to the
insidious slitherers
threatening sleep-stilled skin.

In their firelicked solitude they had sharp
thoughts.
As the cold early morning drifted in
they dreampt awake
and in the slow explosion of dawn
poems were born.

If they were singers
they had to sing to themselves
as the others slept.
They were hunters
who searched in the dark
for images.

In the light
as the others prepared to hunt
and gather
they were given to warm sunlit sleep.
Later, they would hear stories
of the day.

undated early 90s