This evening came quiet, creeping like a cat

Sneaking up on its forsaken prey

Outside, December’s wintry twilight

Begs an end to this, the shortest day

 

My thoughts so aimless, I pray a thought

Arise inside me and inspire

So I move, stoke the settled embers,

Add a log, raise up the fire

 

It’s snapping flames leap again, conspiring

Against those recent added hosts

They dance about like goblins licking,

Belching smoke like holy ghosts

 

I set a chair and settle in beside the hearth

While on my right are curtains drawn

The blowing, snowing wind to turn

This longest night into a frigid dawn

 

My left hand mood began to warm but then again

My right was not the same

For from the whiteness of the night

A bare-fleshed feeling on me came

 

The warm side thankful, humble, grateful

To be alive at such a time, in such a place

While my cold, despicable heart is racked

With thoughts that leave me in disgrace

 

I ask my maker, a prayer of sorts,

How these two senses exist inside one man

Pleading for a healing to my dueling, busted spirit

That only his divineness can

 

Humanity, you don’t get off so easy,

There’s a price to pay for knowing what you are

Before temptation claims you pray that

Conscience reels you in or else you go too far

 

Humanity, spirits duel inside you,

How might you come out on the other side

Insanity, you may win but not without a fight for

I still stab at you with stubborn pride

 

Awake now, sleep must have come

And not a minute too soon or else who knows

But I’m awake now, my spirit or spirits as it were,

Now inside me oneness grows

 

The fire that once inspired now only gray

Its embers laying low, concealing heat

And low my soul, concealing but still containing thoughts

My better angels should delete