Wait For the Night

Wait for the night to come, they said.
Wait for the shadows to fall.
Lean your ear to the wind, they whisper.
Wait for the dead to call.

For the dead will call
and you know them all,
the names, the dates, the places,
their manner of death
and what they left
when memory took their faces.

Wait for the night
when the moon is bright
and the dead will come calling for you.
They'll talk of their lives,
of husbands and wives
of children and how they grew.
They'll laugh off regrets
for the secrets they kept,
secrets that everyone knew.
And you'll cry for your mother
from under the covers
but she will be with them, too.

© Wittenberger, 26-2-2018

August 2016

I thought
it was August heat
smothering us,
making bedclothes stick
and sleep
an uncomfortable
tangling together.

The air-conditioning was poor,
the unit beyond repair,
vents placed too high
on the wall to be useful,
leaving us to swim
in a dark well of summer sweat.

We threw off the sheets,
kept the blinds closed,
the curtains drawn,
believing darkness
would keep us cool.

When you sought relief
in a room down the hall,
I chalked it up
as a quest for comfort,
but you found
the air in that room
just as suffocating
as the one you left.

Even after a portable A/C
cooled the night for sleep,
you complained:
about its size,
the sound it made
while it ran all day,
the traffic noise in the street,
the voices of children
at the nearby school,
and the heat — an August heat
that even the arctic
couldn't cool.

© Wittenberger, 27-2-2018

DAILY REMINDERS

Everything burns.
Everything ends.
Mothers, Fathers,
Children, Friends;
Time is an arrow
that never bends.
Everything burns.
Everything ends.

Everything drops.
Everything falls.
Kings and empires,
Towers and walls;
Time is the sunset
that always calls.
Everything drops.
Everything falls.

Everything gives.

Everything takes.

Love and honor,

Apples and snakes;

Time is a chain

that never breaks.

Everything gives.

Everything takes.

Everything burns.
Everything ends.
Mothers, Fathers,
Children, Friends;
A broken needle
never mends.
Everything burns.
Everything ends.