What Night Not Is Poem by Leslie Philibert

Not a cabin banged together with dark wood and nails of stars;
not the ballast in cold ship full of shouts.
Trees are not sewage; ice is not to be loved, not
the darkness nor the cold blanket thrown over dead lovers
nor the black cloth over the head of a to-be-shot.
Not the curve of light over an airport, not a motorway lifting nor
the dry cancer of a widow. Not a parcel of sons nor a gift of frost.
Not many things: not even the helpless space between
two reduced lightings.