Night Blooming Cereus
Upborne by savage dark thorns the paper-lace dramatic flower
Spins in the winds, a dancing somnambulist;
With only a sleep walking witness, no audience for this hour.
The watchful birds are asleep, and the great fist
Of blackness closes leaving within itself no hollow.
There is no breath in this blackness, walk in your sleep and follow
Down to the sea's brim the promise of day, of the morning
Which rises again from the deep; shall not fail, will give warning.
Evening thou bringest all that bright morning scattered,
The bleating flock, the scrambling goats that stray,
And the young child that on the hillrocks scampered,
Comes weary to his mother from his play.
written 1929, unpublished
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Katherine Anne Porter
You should read her letters!
