NIGHT ON THE VERANDAH
Certain redskins believe that the souls of still-born children live in the shells of winkles. I am listening tonight to the uninterrupted chorus of tree-frogs, like childish elocution, like a plaintive recitation of little girls, like an ebullition of vowels.
I have long studied the ways of the stars. Some move singly, others mount in squadrons. I have recognized the “Doors” and the “Three Ways.” As the clearest space gains the zenith, Jupiter with pure greenish brilliance moves forth like a golden calf. The position of the stars is not left to chance. The interplay of their distances gives me the proportions of the void. Their swing participates in our equilibrium, vital rather than mechanical. I feel their oscillations beneath my feet.
Arriving at the last of these ten windows, the mystic secret consists in surprising at the opposite window, across the shadowy, uninhabited room, another fragment of the heavenly chart.
No intrusion will derange your dreams, and no celestial glances into your chamber will disquiet your repose, if before going to bed you are careful to arrange this great mirror before the night. Since the earth presents such a wide sea to the stars, it must also render itself liable to their influence and spread its deep ocean beneath them like a photographic developing bath.
The night is so calm that it seems to me embalmed.