this dark night ...

Kim is a friend of several years. I remember having a deep conversation about gifts of the Holy Spirit once with her while walking down a street in the Red Light District of Amsterdam!?!

Kim is now living and serving people in Cebu, Philippines as a mid-wife and a friend.

She was originally forming the following poem as the person who sits beside the one who is in pain. It comes out of her own prayers as she sat with a grieving mother. However, after some advise from her own mom, she changed it and re-wrote it from the perspective of the mother, the griever, the empty one.

This Dark Night____

Ride quickly into this dark night,
I'm bound and helpless here.
The moon and stars?
They've all gone out.
Swallowed by the fear.

And now the empty pitch shouts curses,

Gross, unspeakable attacks.
And now the silence is invading,
There's no defense,
There's only black.

Let this be the end of it,
Please let there be no more!
Let my body cease it's breathing,
Cease it's beating,
What are either of those for?

I lay myself against the earth,
Yes, I lay down to die.
When pressing in against my ears,
A name, a prayer,
A whispered battle cry.

There's suddenly a rider,
Though I did not see him come.
But now he's here, close as my skin.
And of my pain?
He's bearing some.