During the Blackout

.

I went out to the orchard,
illicitly, to smoke a cigar
and look up at the sky.
The fleecy clouds were gilded
with the last light
of the vanished sun.
I thought about my life,
my wishes for happiness.

When it was dark I could see
searchlights
roaming the clouds—
four patches of light
cast out
in slow, separate arcs,
each circling each
silently.

Cast out…
like phantoms prowling
for a place, a face,
something they have lost.
Though I couldn’t see it,
I heard a plane flying,
smuggling itself
over the mountains.

.