The Great Unknown

In the threatening air of night

We face each timid step with fright

Seeing not, but only hear

Advance the path with trembling fear.

Advancing seems to go so slow

In the nighttime’s onward flow

Alarmed, connecting every link 

Never knowing what to think.

To sit alone and wash our hands

Fear to sit and fear to stand.

Will each new breath mark our doom

While we sit within our tomb?

Across the road stares a face

In the window, off a pace

A kindred soul, inside he waits

Pondering uncertain fate.

Then to soak and scrub again

And wonder when the night will end.

Try not to worry, not to fret

But, still the spectre haunts us yet.

And then the night creeps through the soul

Our mind flips through the things we’re told.

Then grieve for those the darkness claimed

And pity hearts forever maimed.

Shall it pass, this awful toll

That snatches young and snatches old?

And when it passes, as night should

Will it be for bad or good?

Will again the springtime air

Flow so harmless through our hair

Will we dare to hug and kiss

And shake the hand of those we miss?

Or is this a lasting start

Of sitting lonely in the dark

And seeing faces so forlorn

And fear become our midnight song.

I choose to cast aside the doubt

The fear that’s made our lives a drought

The barren song that grates the night

Will once again be soft and light. 

I greet the morning-time with cheer

And banish doubt and banish fear

It is with purpose sun shines on

And hopes are reborn with the dawn.

                 ------ Willliam Stroud