By Charles M. Sumid     Copyright 2025     Written 2025

CHARLES:

listening to evening’s first sounds

The day hunters bedding down.

Now comes the shift change—

different eyes, different ears taking over.

BASHŌ:

Night does not fall.

Day simply steps aside.

CHARLES:

Darkness reveals what daylight drowns out.

These stars were always there.

BASHŌ:

looking up through branches

The sky shows its depth

only when we stop flooding it

with our own light.

CHARLES:

Listen—the screech owl, announcing territory.

Raccoons beginning their careful raids.

BASHŌ:

Each creature carries its portion of darkness,

knows exactly when to appear.

CHARLES:

touching rough bark

Even trees change at night.

Their breathing slows;

sap settles into different rhythms.

BASHŌ:

Stillness is simply movement

at a deeper frequency.

CHARLES:

Temperature drops. Humidity rises.

Night has its own weather.

BASHŌ:

feeling the cooling air

Darkness teaches what heat cannot—

how to hold moisture without losing it.

CHARLES:

pointing to a moth circling overhead

Navigating by starlight, not the false promise of our fires.

BASHŌ:

Ancient wisdom—

follow distant lights, not close flames.

CHARLES:

I used to think night was day’s absence.

Now I see it as day’s complement.

BASHŌ:

settling onto a fallen log

Two halves of the same breathing:

inhalation, exhalation.

CHARLES:

The stream sounds different at night—

clearer, more distinct,

less competing with bird song.

BASHŌ:

The water has been singing this song all day.

Night finally lets us hear it.

CHARLES:

Do you think we are meant to slow down

when darkness comes?

BASHŌ:

touching the ground

Feel how the earth cools,

contracts slightly,

settles into its evening posture.

CHARLES:

The whole planet demonstrating

how to transition gracefully.

BASHŌ:

What the sun scatters,

darkness gathers.

CHARLES:

as a bat flickers overhead

Echolocation—

seeing with sound,

reading the world through what bounces back.

BASHŌ:

Night teaches different ways of knowing.

CHARLES:

Should we walk deeper into darkness?

BASHŌ:

standing

Let darkness walk deeper into us.