Tonight, a song grows from the tip of my tongue.

Sweet like an aubade on the heartstrings of new lovers. 

It says, Child, surely, morning comes. Tell this night, morning comes.

And now, an unusual night hovers. 

Not the kind that carries the calligraphy of the moon 

like an epitaph to a dead day.

The same song wells in me now, I crave for it like an addict's weed. 

In my bowels. On my lips. 

What frightens me about this night is not that it eclipses the sun. It is not 

that the orange moon claims the sky— 

An ember of light that reminds of a wilting hibiscus, 

withering yam tendrils, of drought, dying & death. 

It is not the darkness. Not the starkness.

It is about this silence & the echoes of my nightly lyrics: 

Child, surely, morning comes. Tell this night, morning comes. 

It is about this nakedness. This  vulnerability.

So, when the night clocks into its darkest hour. I become a prairie of tongues. 

A song lights my spirit. A song settles on my soul. 

Like an anthem, my body crouches in the awe of its lines. 

& my palate finds a paean of peace for my piercing pains: 

Child, surely, morning comes. Tell this night, morning comes.

This nightly song creates a pool of memories, like vaccines, in my soul. 

So strong & sleek the night slips into me again to the wake of a 

whirlpool of warship. Of a song incense with prayer. 

This song rises like a waft of smoke, like a phoenix. 

It matches the night & its hordes of entourage. 

Wits for wiles. & wits for wiles. 

It matches the night and its hordes of entourage. 

& the night begins to retract, begins to retreat, begins to recede 

into a morning; crisp & azure.

Child, surely, morning comes. Tell this night, morning comes.

Child, surely, morning comes. Tell this night, morning comes.