[#iframe: https://www.wnyc.org/widgets/ondemand_player/thenewyorker/#file=https://downloads.newyorker.com/mp3/220214_gerstler_audio.mp3](100%x60)|||***Audio:*** Read by the author.||| +++align-center all day long you wring yourself out\ work virtually\ go nowhere\ brain exclusively tuned\ to end-times music\ till twilight arrives\ to fold you in blue pleats of evening\ a flock of night herons flaps past\ across the sky or your mind\ it’s the same either way\ long-closeted thoughts rise with them\ winging out from daytime roosts\ to forage swamps and wetlands\ to nest in groups\ black-crowned birds who croak like crows\ swoop low over mangroves\ the whirr of wings\ real or imagined\ blurs trivial things\ strange-times lullabies\ declare doom looms\ everyone’s muzzled\ mired in dread\ the future’s not mutual\ it’s mute or dead\ everybody misses everybody\ try to ride it out\ as night herons seek\ what the sun\ will someday summon us to\ after endless-seeming exile\ a prayer to be spared\ *I shall be satisfied, when I wake, with thy likeness*\ a psalm’s promise\ the night herons keep flying toward\ tomorrow’s garlands +++