I discovered this poem in the 80's and it has been my favorite poem ever since ... written by Robert Penn Warren and first published in The New Yorker in 1981. At this point in my life ... almost 76 years ... it means even more ... and I'm listening. 

 

~What Voice at Moth-Hour

 

What voice at moth-hour did I hear calling

As I stood in the orchard while the white

Petals of apple blossoms were falling,

Whiter than moth-wing in that twilight?

 

What voice did I hear as I stood by the stream,

Bemused in the murmurous wisdom there uttered,

While ripples at stone, in their steely gleam,

Caught last light before it was shuttered?

 

What voice did I hear as I wandered alone

In a premature night of cedar, beech, oak,

Each foot set soft, then still as stone

Standing to wait while the first owl spoke?

 

The voice that I heard once at dew-fall, I now

Can hear by a simple trick. If I close

My eyes, in that dusk I again know

The feel of damp grass between bare toes,

 

Can see the last zigzag, sky-skittering, high,

Of a bullbat, and even hear, far off, from

Swamp-cover, the whip-o-will, and as I

Once heard, hear the voice: It's late! Come home.

 

 

Robert Penn Warren