Night Songs

A poem inviting you to embrace the beauty and complexity of the night.

This poem is part of the NaPoWriMo 2025 challenge to write a poem a day in April. This is the prompt for April 9.

Like music, poetry offers us a way to play with and experience sound. This can be through meter, rhyme, varying line lengths, assonance, alliteration, and other techniques that call attention not just to the meaning of words, but the way they echo and resonate against each other. For a look at some of these sound devices in action, read Robert Hillyer’s poem, Fog. It uses both rhyme and uneven line lengths to create a slow, off-kilter rhythm that heightens the poem’s overall ominousness. Today we’d like to challenge you to try writing a poem of your own that uses rhyme, but without adhering to specific line lengths. For extra credit, reference a very specific sound, like the buoy in Hillyer’s poem.

The moon hangs low,
its silver glow spills over the landscape,  
softening edges, blurring lines—  
the world becomes a dream,  
and dreams dance, fireflies in the air. 

The hoot of an owl,  
a haunting call through the dark,  
echoing against ancient trees,  
stirring the fabric of night,  
creating stories of shadows long forgotten.

A rustle in the underbrush,  
soft pad of paws on damp earth,  
the night alive with rumors of movement,  
each sound a heartbeat, each heartbeat a tale,  
as the stars blink above, conspirators in this story.

The scent of dampened leaves,  
carried crisp and sharp by the wind, 
a reminder of life and all its fecundity,
while the owl’s call echoes,  
an age-old symphony resounding,  
conjuring beauty in the dark,  
where secrets lie waiting to unfold. 

Here, in the embrace of night’s quiet song,  
I listen, entranced, to the rhythm of existence,  
the pulse of the earth beneath my feet,  
and in this moment, I find my own voice,  
carried softly on the wings of sound,  
a note in the grand melody of the world.

Author’s Notes

It should come as no surprise that I wandered into nature and chose the specific sound I did for this poem. That hoot became my central sound motif, linking nature to memory and mystery.

I wrote this poem (and most of the others for NaPoWriMo) at 1 a.m. and went to sleep, dreaming of the words I wrote. I leave any editing ‘till after my morning coffee.

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