The wind is whispering tonight
There: hear the thousand, thousand words
Of holiness stirred into spite
That were i able and not stirred
By any and all voice deterred
Somehow by that creep and that stealth
Might disregard and, blithe, move on
Instead of me, be someone else
Instead hear whispers, turn, be gone;
No, I listen and soon belong
To night-colored angels sparring
For my open soul. Spoil Satan
Of his reward, my heart’s Merlin
Lord Lord are his prints like latents
Allowed to touch my soul so blatant
O where are You when Whisper Dark
descends? On whom should I depend
When those black figures so death-stark
Attack my sense and so upend
The crooked road I might have bent
Straight had I not been forsaken
Taken up in peril thrashing
Midst the windy trees so shaken
That I can scarce recover wings
Once sent to me imagining
My life might have purpose beyond
Night-colored angels murmuring
Of horrible eternal dawns
Disheveled hospital mornings
Grasping at white sheets, moaning
Awake in stranger’s underpants
All promise of salvation gone:
And tell me what partner joins a dance
When there’s amnesiac pants pulled on
When shrieks invade our mingled dawn?
Jeanne Scroggs is a poet, essayist, and artist currently residing in Winterset, IA with her husband Rich. She can be reached at rscroggs@q.com