Night Terrors

(A Poem for Hilary)

You were the child of the night terrors,

not regularly, but often enough to scare me

with your uncontrolled, unstoppable crying,

terrorizing screams in the night, as if possessed

by something haunting you, this unexplained alarm.

So we’d wander the house, you and me, a tiny,

unconsolable body carried in my arms, looking

behind the curtains and inside the closets and corners

of the room, seeking light there, assuring ourselves

no one, no thing was hiding in the darkness,

a dance we did those nights to a music only we

could hear, holding tight to each other until it stopped

and your head flopped onto my shoulder,

your soft snores quiet in my ear, consoled.

 

So I tucked you back into your little bed, secured

you under the blankets and returned the little bear

to his place in your arms, and took myself back

to my own room, lying awake under the covers,

my own night terrors continuing, wondering

if you were safe, if we were safe, you and I,

just as I do even now, wondering what terrors

you face still, wandering your own rooms,

looking behind curtains and doors, perhaps

inconsolable in the distance where you live.

God

If God is, always was, always

will be, does it really matter

how he appears, what form

he takes, where he dwells, who

even he is in these changed places

we ourselves now reside, varieties

of time and space, the cultures

and architectures and languages

assigned to describe and define and

identify? He is, always was, always

will be, a universal truth of some

existence beyond ourselves, greater than;

isn’t that really all that matters?

The Gift of Daffodils

We bought daffodils for the deer,

planting them with love along the edge

of the garden, around the old hostas,

in late fall, a spring surprise for them, yet

hardly a fit gift for deer who don’t like daffodils,

just the hostas and lilies and phlox in my garden,

bountiful meals. But my wife insisted

and the daffodils came up, yellow ones

bright against the green of our lawn, came up

and dropped their flowers, stalks and leaves

turned brown long before the hostas grew

and the deer returned to eat their fill,

our mornings filled with the nibbled stalks

of hostas, lilies, and phlox growing tall.

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And the Archangel Michael blew loud

the trumpet of God, to raise first the dead in the end times;

and the children of Israel encircling Jericho, seven days,

the rams’ horns blaring and the walls came tumbling down.

But I have no such Biblical aspirations, content to play my old horn,

a joyful noise from youthful days, some old songs and hymns,

something new, not played well, but well enough, perhaps,

to calm my own savage breast in these days of chaos and trouble,

restless and weary, finding again the peace of music still playing

in a heart and soul in need of soothing, in need of peace.