VESPERS

Time now to light the lamp, and dip

          the brush into

The ink. The new moon’s tiny ship 

          sails into view

Above the treetops. Let this be

          to the tune of

Some old camp song, or melody

          that not of love

Or longing speaks, but moments in

          the woodland, here,

At dusk, when all the stars begin

          to reappear.

Jared Carter is the author of six books of poetry. The most recent, Darkened Rooms of Summer, was published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press. Carter’s first book, Work, for the Night Is Coming, received the Walt Whitman Award. He is the recipient of a number of national awards and honors since then, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.