The Night's Own Country
The moon lays down her silver on the grass
and something in the dark exhales its name.
The owl speaks first, then silence answers back,
and all the small night creatures do the same.
The stars are not so distant as they seem —
I've chased them down a hundred tangled roads,
found them caught in puddles, pinned to streams,
burning in the eyes of night's small toads.
This is the hour the world belongs to those
who know that dark is not the absence of light
but something older, softer, luminous —
a different kind of seeing. This is night.
artwork and poetry ©Stacy Stephens