Nine P.M. on a January Evening

Author Sarah Tate

Nine P.M. on a January Evening

Sarah Tate

It’s so quiet sitting outside on a winter night. 
Maybe a dog barks every ten minutes. Or cars whoosh 
past with the cantering of powerful horses. Someone 
inside on the phone, mumbling beyond walls, voices 
like archivists chatting in a forgotten library. Though, 
for the most part, you hold silence in your hands,
as fragile and cold as globed glass. You imagine 
you're embracing a lost world, where everyone 
knows to stop and stare at starlight on such a night
because they’re locals, but they’ve found a way,
always, to see something new with each look.
A flock of small startled birds. Beads of rain, 
perhaps while strolling the beach. White shores 
where seashells turn over in the waves. Stone 
graves in a snow-caked cemetery. Maybe, even 
if unfiltered glow pricks the sky just so, a goddess 
in an embroidered gown, like marble come to life, 
her hands always extended. 

---

Poems & Paraboles publishes work that illuminates, awakens, or opens a small window toward wonder. Some pieces are quiet. Some are bold. Some carry a moral thread, while others wander into the mysterious and ethereal.

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