When the power fails

Candlewick and tallow scent
move through the rooms,
faces turn tenuous and flickering,
go to bed early. A hand
follows words through a wavering
of final lines - revising light.
I cannot name night birds that call
in another tongue,
nor discover the quilled text
of their markings.
Shadows angle upward on sheer curtains ...
swift migrations of cloud
over that rising in the east.
In a slow verge toward sleep,
senses fed on darkness open
to the silent ripeness of the moon.