Night Poem

Don't give away

all your beauty for free.

Let there be a portion of your silence

that falls into deeper silence,

pulsing like a distant star

in the scented abyss

of your intimacy with no one

but the dark.

Learn the art of not revealing

what you yearn to share

with every thirsty stranger.

Let your luster be like the moon

pulling on the garden

from within.

We all share the night.

Now and then a green
nocturnal bud bursts free,
and there's a sigh
among the ancestors
composted in loam.

Pilgrims stop and want to know,

"What is that fragrance?"

Don't tell them.

Just let your wild

invisible sweetness fill

the air, the hour

before dawn.

Love is a secret.

The Beloved is a secret.

You must be a secret too.