Night Watch
By John Herlihy

The night is known for its darkness;
But the night is not always dark.
We rely on the moon to brighten the night;
Give it some mood and texture, if not too much light.
The night shapes its color into purples and maroons,
Like butterflies coloring their wings in darkened cocoons.
Random lights create unexpected shades and shadow;
A car’s head beams invade the eyes of a petrified doe.
We freeze blinded for a second, as if struck from behind;
The night suffers from shifting moods of many a kind.
Its sudden changes feel staged and slightly suspicious;
At least the darkness inspires no feelings to be malicious.

Sirens sound their urgency with a sense of right;
A random scream holds no terror, only mild fright,
Even an isolated gunshot echoes like a feeble gasp.
In night watch feelings appear, then slip through our grasp.
The yellowing streetlights try to illuminate the main drag;
They do little to scare the night away, not even that weeping hag.
The night holds little comfort and feels like borrowed time;
Everything seems partially blocked as I blink thru cobwebs and slime.
There is gravity to the night that seems to pulls us downward;
Then later on lifts us up with the lure of vastness surging upward.
The night simply fills earth and sky with its mysterious wonder;
It seeps thru the cracks of my soul with intentions to plunder.

The night but an idea: it happens then disappears with the dawn;
Not a single night is the same but arrives with new life to spawn.
We touch it, brush it, probe alien feelings that we couldn’t name,
We try to feel its inner core before it slips away from us all the same.
The night gives nothing of itself away about what she may think;
It only draws the blood of your heart about what you may think.
I am happy; I am sad; I am feeling melancholy; I am feeling bad;
The night brings emotions out of us until we feel utterly mad.
The air of the night was furnace hot and felt like breathing ashes;
The headlights of cars kept shining thru my eyes in hot flashes.
I could heard the metallic cars all shiny and dark moving outside me;
Sounding whoosh-whoosh-whoosh like a second heart inside me.

The secret of the night lies within memories that never linger
It happens then moves on, with the touch of a witch’s finger.