If I Could Pray Poem by Barry Middleton

If I could pray, then I would pray for strength,
the strength of courage in the face of fear,
for in a dream I saw a dreadful sight,
as it was I laid there upon the bier.

A night of fog had settled on the view,
obscuring all I ever thought I knew,
and there was only silence in that place,
the spirit fled with not a single trace.

And no attendant ghosts had come to grieve,
within a barren forest stripped and bleak,
and not a breath of wind disturbed the trees,
but all was cloaked within a strange mystique.

The dream subsided as the darkness fell,
beyond the mist of dim and dreadful night,
and only then did I perceive a sound,
where tolling bells proclaimed the final rite.