The Edge of the Night

Every day fades out with a pink horizon and another cycle of homework,

As the night fades in on the periphery of vision,

Slowly, shadowy assassins creeping nearer

Across the edges of the yard and down the street.

Pushing the night.

Just keep on pushing the edge of the night.

Every evening draws darker with the hour,

The night combing shadows out longer and thicker like carded wool.

The dark seeps in under doorways and through windows,

Filing up the places light had held so shortly before.

Pushing the night.

Just keep on pushing the edge of the night.

Every night slowly closes in on itself,

Each soft light a point of resistance against this creeping sea of darkness.

Slowly the shadows close in from all sides as the light bulbs go out,

One by one by one,

Until only my reading light remains, a bouy in the ocean.

Pushing the night.

Just keep on pushing the edge of the night.

Every mind succumbs to dreams sometime,

Every eye must eventually close.

But don’t surrender to the clock and the quiet without testing your strength.

Don’t let your last corner of light be surrounded with night and destroyed.

Strike out farther into the dark, last longer than your alarm says you will;

Let your rebellion be in your existence, persistence, your sleepless remaining.

Pushing the night.

Just keep on pushing the edge of the night.

Every night finally recedes into morning.

Every stretching shadow shrinks back towards the pink horizon,

And the inexorable tides turn away.

If you can resist its pull, the darkness will retreat

And the world returns to its wakefulness.

So when the thrill strikes you to remain,

To stand sentry against the dark in his kingdom,

Remember what you are doing, with each second that ticks by to eyes open –

Pushing the night.

Just keep on pushing the edge of the night.


XXX--