Evacuation Poem by Seamus O' Brian

Sunlight evacuated from the chaos below
The irresistible tide of heaven pulls
Final beams of wandering light
Sucked from the crevices, the tidal pools
The reed-choked creeks of humanity
A silent monk waits
With the stillness of a calm sea
As evening recalls the steeds of light
To return home from the village
In the valley below. The last of the herd,
Pushed upward by the shadows arising
From silent doorways and still hollows,
Slowly clambers the crevices
of the canyon wall,
to stand for a moment
On the shoulder of the mountain
Flashing their manes of luminosity
Before disappearing into the wink
Of the setting sun.
On the shoulder of the mountain,
The silent observer waits,
As still as the emptiness of the space
That lies between the heavens
and the chaos that reigns
In the kingdom ruled by the sun.
He waits for the heaviness of the night
Knowing with indiscernible satisfaction
That even now it creeps along the pathways
Wanders up the shadowed alleys
Asphyxiates the final struggles
Of the tumult of day.
The shoulder of the mountain turns
Beneath the wheel of the heavens
And finally, the stillness of the night
Reigns, and in the weight of the darkness,
In the alone-ness of the mountain,
at last he can hear
The echoes of his soul.