It’s hard to keep watching for dawn
When all you can remember is darkness --
Deep, starless, enclouded darkness --
And Night itself has come for you,
A ravenous, slavering wolf,
Overpowering your last defenses,
Dragging you back to its lair,
Dismembering your best intentions,

Devouring your fondest dreams,

Your love, your joy, your peace,
Bite by soul-shredding bite.

It would take a miracle, you think,
For light to blaze up out of nowhere
And exorcise this darkness
From horizon to sun-kissed horizon,
To rescue you from this wolf’s den,
To restore your ravaged heart,
To resurrect your deadened hope.
But miracles don’t happen, you’re about to say
When an impossible light blazes forth,
Blinding and sudden,
Proving you gloriously wrong.

Poem by
MICAH HAWKINSON
Noises from the Machine