the black bark of a dog

Opus 191

THE black bark of a dog
Made patterns against the night.
And little leaves flute-noted across the moon.

I seemed to feel your soft looks
Steal across that quiet evening room
Where once our souls spoke, long ago.

For that was of a vastness;
And this night is of a vastness . . .

There was a dog-bark then —
It was the sound
Of my rebellious and incredulous heart.
Its patterns twined about the stars
And drew them down
And devoured them.

 - Arthur Davison Ficke, writing as "Anne Knish," Spectra, A Book of Poetic Experiments (New York: Michael Kennerley, 1916), p. 48.