At One With the Night

“Be at one with the night,” my grandpa often said,
but I’d cry for my mum in the darkness instead.
“Let the stars find you peace,” he’d guide me each night,
“let no demon in for they’ll steal all your light.”

“But grandpa, I’d question, “the demons are big?”
And he’d smile, from his armchair, then he’d take a swig
of his lager; he drank from a pint glass: not can.
He said manners were what held him right as a man.

Then he’d blow out cigar smoke in rings I’d admire
while wondering how come he never caught fire
and I’d figure, well grandpa must know lots of stuff
if smoke doesn’t kill him, he’s clever enough.

He’d gather me in to his jumper while rocking,
his chair always creaking, the noise of it blocking
my darkness, my worry, my need for the freedom
to learn how it was now that I would have no mum.

“Be at one with the night, son, she’ll come to you
through the rain, wind and sun, in the sky … she’s its blue.
She’s the molecules that make it the colour we see,
she’s everywhere son, inside you, and with me.”

“And grandpa, can she kill my demons of dark time?”
“No son, she’d like to, but here, boy, that wind chime--
--the one on the porch, you hear how it tinkles?”
“Yes grandpa.” “Well, son, it’s like the stars’ twinkles.”

“They’re all part of scaring the demons away now,
and here, boy, I’ll tell you exactly the way how.
If dark gets your skin going bumpy with fright,
pull the chimes and then find the head star of the night.

It shines much more brightly than any other,
that star, my dear boy, is the soul of your mother.
If she hears your tinkle, she’ll gather her light
and shine down to help you be one with the night.”

Each night we’d sit rocking, his story remained,
each day I’d feel stronger, as time healed the pain.
"So you see, son, the darkness is nothing to fear.
Not with me, and your grandma and great grandpa here."