UNCAGED

A poem by Guy Gavriel Kay.

The darkness feels empty, alien. January.
Stranded streetlights burn blue above the snow.
Winter nights can freeze the heart. Animals die.
We want more life than this hollowness affords.
 
The city is not a haven but we can find
each other. Crowds downtown, towers. Neon.
Buildings are bones. So are the monuments
to those gone and ghostly, unremembered.
 
But we do rest on what has been
before we came here, even if we don’t know it.
No place answers every need. No life answers
every need. Haven’t you learned this yet?
 
Still, we can meet each other on night streets
for good or ill. For good or ill. In bars, cafes,
we share whatever it is we have—
or we don’t share. Sometimes we don’t.
 
‘The city is a cage’ Alexandria’s poet wrote.
Well. Well ... so many lines we love are false
as much as they are true. What snowbound
bungalow in a suburb may not also be a cage?
 
What farmhouse in a hard, loud winter wind?
 
End of night now. Morning sunrise soon.
On the lake, on the towers. On us,
needing shelter, sometimes finding it.
When day arrives we’ll go through it together.
 
Another clear night’s coming, they say.
The stars, harder to see here, downtown,
will be overhead again. One by one,
then so many shining in the dark.

Guy Gavriel Kay is the author of sixteen novels and a book of poetry. His works are international bestsellers and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Mr. Kay is a member of the Order of Canada, appointed for his outstanding contributions to speculative fiction. He lives in Toronto.

Art by Havynn Abou.

This poem is featured in ECLOGUE, the first edition of our literary SFF print journal. You can get a copy here.