Words that help
the evening soften.

A tired mind does not need to be carried somewhere new. Sometimes it only needs permission to stop traveling.

Cadence can become that permission. A familiar rhythm, a returning image, a phrase that arrives when the mind has begun to expect it — each becomes a small landmark in the dark.

The poem does not pull the reader forward. It leaves lanterns behind.

And somewhere between one quiet line and the next, attention no longer has to search for where it is going.

The eye is always tempted to wander ahead. It searches the next line before the present one has finished speaking.

A voice changes that.

Listening gives the poem back its sense of time. Words arrive only when they are ready to arrive, leaving small spaces where imagination can breathe.

The listener no longer determines the pace of the journey.

For a little while, the poem carries them.

Night is not the hour to wrestle every meaning into the light.

If a line begins to ask too much, let it remain at a distance. Let the image pass without naming what it means. Understanding can wait beside tomorrow’s window.

A bedtime poem does not need to be solved. It can be a half-open doorway, a shape moving softly at the edge of thought.

Leave before effort returns, and the unfinished part may follow you gently into dreaming.