December Night

Darkness has settled in
Where it isn’t particularly needed
…or wanted.
It came slinking in with the mist
from across the river.

And somewhere else, I know,
It would have come creeping down
from out of the mountain passes…
Creeping out from the lengthening shadow
as part of the cold, the snow and wintry winds..

That is the way of it.

It will pass in time…
I guess.
At least that has been the way of it.

I wonder though,
If what has always happened in the past
necessarily makes it so.

–Salem, Oregon, 1977