Nightfall
How still the darkness of the night,
even intently though I listen.
The sounds all muted, as though they had not been,
and never were except in memory.
Here I might once have heard a sigh of lovers
or the shifting of a babe in it's cradle, all are gone...
no shadows trace their way through this ebon darkness,
no gossamer thread of whisper to guide me in this night.
How sure my feet once tread this path,
following the sounds as others follow light,
drawn like the moth to a flame;
filling my world as surely as water might fill a vessel,
leaving not the tiniest imperfection dry.
So were the sounds of my living,
filling my days and bringing order to the void about me.
How still the beating of my heart in the silence,
that once ordered the hours and the minutes of living.
Its cadence formed the length of my step on this path,
its movement within me the steps of my future all unfolding.
The color of my blood was the sound of its hurry.
Quiet now, subdued within this wrapper of enfolding dark.
About me the stillness of silence settles, as companion, deep
within this night and ward against the need for haste.
How was sound my need, my guide? How was it important
that I must needs run to its bidding, even as an army marches
to its drums, their steady rhythm a heartbeat that must be heeded.
When did my friends fall silent by the way?
I no longer hear their voices.
What fate befell them, what war or tragedy still their sound?
When did the symphony that I heard become a solo,
leaving where it had been, a manuscript of silent notes?
Were once those sounds so loud?
When did love become so quiet?
I hear not the slightest whisper in this place
of love that thundered in my being.
Love that called and sang and screamed and cried,
now, it too, silent in this night.
I look about and with my eyes, I strive
to hear the sounds of silent friends and long ago loves,
but in this place of darkness are only shadows.
The stealthy dark that seeps in to fill the silent space
left behind by past belongings.
Where once was being; now shadows gather.
Muffled sounds fade to silence leaving only dark.
Was I to sit and hear the silence, might soon the sun would
arise again? Dispelling darkness, restoring structure to a world
I might see again as new.
Might then my life be reconstructed and once again a path I see?
Would lost friends live and lost loves flourish and the drums
of war be stilled?
How patient I might be for sunrise, if I hoped it songs might bring.
But,. all about me is dark and silent.
I sit alone within my thoughts.
