With Black Ordeal Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

With black ordeal
The shrouds and ghosts of to-night
Covered themselves to be as night
One with the night

Descending step after ancient step
With torches burning
The ghosts and shrouds transparent
Moved in cluster
In procession:
The torches floated by themselves
Upheld.

Drew backwards, linear, proud and
Humble simultaneously
The whiff of the torches
Their fire
Their nocturnal pride and self-esteem.

Silent the toes fell on the steps
Silent
Silent
Silent
And yet,
On and on and on they marched
Directionless:
For they wanted no direction
But only march and march
So willed they,
The shrouds and ghosts, that night.

They somehow went by the black sea
The mirror of the dark heavens
That frowned:
Dawn was still away and there
Before the outreach of the Dawn
They faded
And so the suspicious eyes of Dawn
Evaded:
These ghosts and shrouds, these we
Must transform into, at least by trial,
At least one night.