from Adventures in the High Wind (©1990)

Fear at Dusk

Of late, there has been a time each day, as evening and darkness approach, when patterns of shadow and dimming light fill my soul with anxiety that nearly extinguishes my will.

I experienced similar bouts of apprehension when I was nineteen and out on the highways hitchhiking the nation.  Night would approach, and I would feel so far from home.  In the hour of daylight turning toward darkness, there are primitive senses triggered by the tones of the sky and the chill of air that tell the creatures of day they must find shelter against the perils of the night.  I was nineteen and alone along some empty, distant highway and so far away from light and warmth in the grey of homeless twilight.

But now I am not homeless.  I am only alone.   I can stoke the woodstove and drive out the cold.  I can switch on the lights and dispel the gloom.  I can play Beethoven on the tape machine and distract the howling winds.  But, for all of my efforts, there is little solace for the distance to which I have cast my soul in quest of a few simple poems.