Night Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

NIGHT

Clothing the barren, wintry land,
The dismal, endless, haunted plain -
A blizzard blurs the meads, the glades, the terrible terrain;
And as the snows descend,
Demonic eyes
They gleam like sand.
And the lows and highs
Of the fountain in the end
Illumines naught but a moonless sky,
With no beacon of light.
Are the stars to grow dim,
And perish tonight?
For all seraphim
Have left the vales,
In the woods, close by.
The gloomy silhouettes betray
Their shadows on the graves.
A farm dog wails
In the distance - to the firmament's gray
And the darkened enclaves
Are eerie to the sight.
As my bating breath fails
In the terrible void of the plaintive night,
There! - over the hill of many a dead and sallow reed
A ghost arises on the mead
To claim my soul, to take me below.
Oh, astonishing scene,
My woe!
The winds are cold, merciless and mean.
As I witness dead men, hanging from ropes
Amid branch and leaf -
Buried are all my hopes,
And I moan
Alone -
In my eternal grief.

JOHN LARS ZWERENZ
From 'THE GRAVE AND OTHER POEMS' [C] 2021