-- The Fragility of the Night -–

John Herlihy

The fragile night lies quietly amid leaf and grass,

The world ready to be shattered in the dark glass.

A quiet repose of darkness overwhelms our world,

While overhead star galaxies rhythmically swirled.

The thief roams the shadows of night with impunity;

Night crawlers roam the corridors of night with immunity.

Broken hearts but tender morsels in night’s exotic feast,

Devoured by the hunger pangs of this ancient, ageless beast.

The night a plate of ebony black fused with stars,

A suitable setting for the orbit of the war-like planet Mars.

The chilly seas of night awash in earth’s dome overhead,

Pillars of earth over-shadowed by ancient darkness spread.

The night flower spreads its white petals made of cut glass,

To shatter the darkness of the night as its way to harass.

Even the firefly disturbs night’s serenity with its meagre light,

Its brief, magical glow shatters the integrity of the night.

Amid the broken threads of the earth, the night stands firm,

Night’s fragility sews one unbroken thread it never had to learn.

On the other side of earth, the night follows in earth’s track,

Disappears at dawn, but after a long day it always comes back.

And come back it does with a vengeance that always astounds,

With its darkness, its mystery, and a loneliness that abounds.

To rule over the slow-orbiting earth during the whole night long,

Until dawn breaks the fragility of the night with the words: begone!

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(c) John Herlihy 11 December 2018