The Night

Welcome to
darkness
Welcome to aeons and epochs of missing light
Welcome to night.

This is when you run inside, run away in fright.
This is when you turn on all the lights.
This is night.

This is where we used to roam,
Places we owned when the shadows came out.
With outlines unknown, we could the comb the streets
And did until we were grown.

And now we are creatures of habit, of blight
Of weakening sight and more and more light
Of lengthening shadows of lessening height
Of fearing and jeering and nearing the night.


And soon comes the night.

And so we wait in our miniature circles of light
jetting and threading and dreading the night
As it smoothly approaches, encroaching the white--

Soon
comes
night.