This Daughterless Night Poem by Martin TURNER

This daughterless night is deepening.
The tinkle of laughter awaits
and unlistened-to interruptions
for someone who is always thinking.

This daughterless night is darkening.
The bowl of fruit
suffers no wristwatches
but the clock is always ticking.

Below the samphire
tides wash idly at the feet
of the pale, impassive cliff
of this night without daughters.

Even planets envy the clockwork
of the daughters who lurch and ricochet
in a world of messages
and surprises.

The notes of rain descend
the slope of this daughterless night,
a hammering of tin nails
in the seasonal pattern-shift.

People everywhere are awakening
to the morbidity of the world
and the starkness of its rules.
Dawn gnaws at the feet of daughters.