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
