Night

Night’s silence, so sweet,
The melancholy melody of quiet in the air,
A masterpiece of slow, and sweet and painless solitaire
That shines my ever-growing fear with blooms of radiance,
And sooths my aching mind with every calm and dark cadence.
I am - awake,
A moonless, starless, cloudless sky my restless eyes adore,
That holds me, and reminds me what I am still waking for,
I hope this blanket of darkness will carry me to sleep,
The slumber I so badly wish for is boundlessly deep.
Not death, no.
This night sky alone is more than death could ever give me.
Is life not so beautiful, does life not treat us sweetly?
Maybe I should soon remember the pain I do not feel,
Pain that, for distant others, never ceases to be real
It grinds
Upon the souls and frames of those whose lives have been transformed;
Throughout my waking livelihood, so lavishly adorned,
(What simple pain to me has for all their pain been expelled?)
My mind sings songs of privilege and shame that won’t be quelled.
Fixed
Staring. Naming this nightly silence “The Angel Who Spares”.
Silence’s sister is peace, and it’s peace I can declare,
But in other skies, silence’s space is filled with worry
There, the air is thick and slick and binding like a slurry.