Dusk Comes To Evanston Poem by Fred Babbin

Dusk comes
The sparrows
make their final noise for the evening
A single crow
expressing territoriality, caws-
Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw!
as the sun sets slowly
in the white-grey pink cloud sky
and everything goes to blue and grey
and then only dusky green shows
until the street lights come on
Destroying the night's darkness,
the silence of the night

And the unheard televisions
blasting away in their niches
selling the indispensables
we must live for
while the nighthawks circle
over the gravel roofs
of the apartment buildings
catching the leftover mosquitoes and bugs
the poison of the Sanitary District
didn't kill
And into complete darkness
with the darker shadows
of the bats like black ghosts
soaring in silence and mystery