The Night Is Dark Poem by Linda Marie Van Tassell

The night is dark and docked in my soul.
The weight of words is mottled with tears.
It's hard to grasp and harder to hold -
this surfeit that has haunted my years.

Broken knees and unanswered prayers -
a lifetime of love comes to its end.
Penultimate pulse, a fleeting breath -
love is a ghost that clings to the wind.

Despairingly deep, my hands to the sky,
my bed a raft in the ocean's throat.
Seawater sadness, a tragedy -
a Bedouin blackbird falls, remote.

Your words cling to the quartered moonlight -
a miscarried myth that never bore fruit,
a green timber that never knew fire,
a patch of promise never took root.

I lost your love beneath salted waves,
a tangled netting of shattered dreams.
I lost my self, my future, my home -
a splintered soul that no god redeems.

Hollow, this hole, has ripped through my heart!
I believed in you; I always did!
Each word an echo, a stone, a lie,
coffin of silence, your eyes - the lid.

Man, father, brother, lover I've known.
No, nothing else will there ever be.
En route I travel to Wildway Road
to find the least of what's left of me.

You carry onward without a care.
I don't understand but somehow know.
Always to leave and never to stay,
when doubt slips in, you're the first to go.

The night is dark, and I watch and weep.
I trace my Savior in gold and bone.
A train passes by; its whistle blows.
I never wanted to be alone.

So much for love in deep dark of night!
Windows are frosted from autumn's chill.
Within or without, I find no warmth.
The night is dark and quiet and still.

There's not enough time to scatter stones,
to gather mushrooms and moss and wood,
to fan the flames and strengthen the fire
so it burns forever, strong, and good.

The leaves shrivel into tiny boats.
The season spills over evergreens,
and shadows fall over country roads
between the what-ifs and never-beens.

Farewell, love, my never meant to be.
I lower my eyes, my heart, my truth.
So dark the nights and darker the days.
The dust settles on fragments of youth.