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In the Southwest in Mid-September
(a Nuit Blanche poem, after Amy Lowell’s “Nuit Blanche”)

The chirping of crickets in the night
is not found in the desert.
Two hours from Albuquerque, not much is.

In Socorro, I stop to get gas, lunch,
and a room for later that night.
Then I head out, driving dusty highways,

making my way to the Very Large Array.
The movement of beasts ceases. Even humanity
is intermittent. Eventually, a tiny town.

A cowboy heading into the gas station.
Abandoned mine, old church. Heat.
The usual things to be seen in a place

that is really no place. Then the giant
dish antennas come into view,
also silent and still. I stop the car

and get out. How odd my home in
a Portland suburb seems from here.
Its rain, the traffic, bridges over rivers,

crowds, and noise. All alien.
I know I will miss, once I am driving
in urbanity again, the muted dryness

that surrounds me now, while also
loving the falsity of the city lights,
like the twinkling of stars.

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Author’s note: I invented this form. Here are the guidelines for writing a Nuit Blanche: Choose one of Amy Lowell’s short poems. The first line is your first line, and her last line is your last line. If you chose a poem with more than two lines, those other lines must also be used somewhere in your poem. You can change the punctuation, of course, but try to keep the verb tenses, etc. exactly the same, and in the same order as in Lowell’s poem. I call it a Nuit Blanche because that is the title of the Lowell poem I used for the first one I wrote, and because it translates to “sleepless night” which sounds so much better in French but even in English is still a very evocative term.)

Mary Christine Delea has a Ph.D. and is a former university professor. She continues to teach through in-person and online workshops and in her volunteer positions. Her poems have been published in one full-length collection (The Skeleton Holding Up the Sky from Main Street Rag Press), three chapbooks, numerous journals, and various anthologies. Originally from Long Island, NY, she now lives in Oregon. Her website is https://www.mchristinedelea.com/.