Without the Night

Illustration is "Starry night over the Rhone" by Vincent Van Gogh.
Taken from Wikimedia Commons. 

Without the night there is no day.

Where light exists, it will cast shade.

To love our homes we have to stray.

This is how our world is made.

What if we could send our woe away?

We would lose more then than just relief.

Hopes and dreams, ideals and idle play

would go as well, tangled with our grief,

and leave our world a place of silent grey.

Pain makes pleasure true and real.

When hurt and sorrow block your way,

that is just the price. You live the deal:
without the night there is no day.

Rebirth

Photograph is "My Living Room" by alexiuss.

            People lived here, before the plague came.

            A fire burned beneath those bricks. The smell of fresh wood smoke mingled with the scents of simmering stews and baking breads. Where splintering debris lays now, children used to trip and fall gently on a soft carpet. A sturdy roof kept a family warm and dry.

            They said the plague was the great death, the death of all. But look what it left behind.

           

            Vines crawl up that chimney now. The green fragrances of moss and mushrooms and newly unfurled leaves waft through the house. Fresh saplings dig their roots in the dirt. Open beams welcome in the energy of sunlight and the nourishment of rain.

            There was no death here. Only change.

The wall is falling down.

Photograph is "Kaleidoscope Reverie" by alexiuss. 

The bricks are chipping off.

The mortar is a flaky crust

grinding into greyish dust

puffing like a sickly cough.

Stairs sag beneath the weight

of bricks and dirt and bottle caps.

Sometimes they creak. They will collapse,

split by gravity and fate.

It's just a matter of time,

‘til the wood has rotted away,

‘til the wall, long past its day,

is just a memory of grime.

The wall is falling down, falling down.

Soon it will be completely through:

and the last brick will hit the ground

freed at last to be something new.