"Peopling the Night" by Jean Van Loon

Peopling the Night

We is such a lovely word,
you said in hospice.
You who used it seldom
once we kids had grown.

Solitaire by TV’s light.
Books in piles, from library
or friends, but no pillow talk
about them after reading

or as you warmed a mug of milk
in the bedtime kitchen. Milk,
books, lamplight—defences
against night’s nebulous threat.

“She had a bad night,” the nurse
told me, “kept repeating I’m
so so sorry.” Final hospital stay
before hospice, room-mate

shouting No to invisible
priests and devils. How could I
probe your sorrow, you deaf,
room-mate’s family bulging

the pale fall of fabric between?
How could you tell me, you who
kept sorrows to yourself, held
regrets as secret shame? We

is such a lovely word,
you told me, the last time
you sat up in bed. Sowing
a stone in my heart’s folds.

Jean Van Loon’s first poetry collection Building on River, published by Cormorant Books in April 2018, was shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Prize. Her stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in literary magazines in the US and Canada and in Journey Prize Stories19. She holds an MFA from UBC.

Jean will be reading this poem during one of our free online 75th anniversary celebrations on November 25. Click here to learn more!