Strangers in the Dark
Two strangers cross this dark, dark night
and somehow, without knowing why,
we cannot part and say goodbye
as other smarter strangers might.
Instead, we linger longingly
and circle 'round the empty street
and wonder at how we did meet.
He has no aim of wronging me,
nor have I aim of harming him.
We do not speak, as if by oath
we have been bound to keep our troth
and so we stay in streetlights dim.
Perhaps, had we two passed by day
our meet would not have been sustained,
our full contact indeed contained
in moments as we passed our way.
What chance of fate, what errant thought
has caused this passage in the night?
Shall we two stay here till the light
to wonder -- what have we forgot?
Two strangers on a darkened street
become a new thing in the light,
and we, who bonded in the night,
now face the day as comrades sweet.
(written during my biblical poetry class, while thinking of A Thousand Words for Stranger and the way in which the main characters find each other--a meditation on what it means to be a stranger)
and somehow, without knowing why,
we cannot part and say goodbye
as other smarter strangers might.
Instead, we linger longingly
and circle 'round the empty street
and wonder at how we did meet.
He has no aim of wronging me,
nor have I aim of harming him.
We do not speak, as if by oath
we have been bound to keep our troth
and so we stay in streetlights dim.
Perhaps, had we two passed by day
our meet would not have been sustained,
our full contact indeed contained
in moments as we passed our way.
What chance of fate, what errant thought
has caused this passage in the night?
Shall we two stay here till the light
to wonder -- what have we forgot?
Two strangers on a darkened street
become a new thing in the light,
and we, who bonded in the night,
now face the day as comrades sweet.
(written during my biblical poetry class, while thinking of A Thousand Words for Stranger and the way in which the main characters find each other--a meditation on what it means to be a stranger)