60. Blessings

Author’s note: The other night, as I drifted off to sleep, I had a brief and horrific (but also kind of awesome) nightmare about winged demon-like bats that come at night and yank children into the air. In my dream, I kept repeating the line “the night is dark and full of terrors.” I woke up and wrote it down and instantly recognized it as a line from “Game of Thrones.” Drat. That’s a good line, George RR Martin. Anywho, I contemplated writing a poem where I’d use that line over and over, but instead opted for something else. I love horror but don’t write it very often. Hope you enjoy.

Blessings

The fading sun puts itself to bed
Kissing horizon, a dying light
The sky goes orange, then pink, then red
And day turns into night

A warm wind turns blustery cold
Chimney smoke rises to the sky
From a cottage, cozy but old
With a small family deep inside

As they sit to eat their dinner
The morning’s sermon still echoes in their chests
Of demons, hellfire, saints and sinners
And how God protects the blessed

Their cottage a home, a home a town
Fireflies light up a hill
A mom puts on her sleeping gown
In bed, her children once restless now still.

A weary dad rocks in his chair
And puffs tobacco through his pipe
There’s a thick danger that fills the air
It smells foul, odorous, and ripe

He looks to his family, fast asleep
A rifle by his side
This is the night the demons reap
and stalk the countryside

The seconds to minutes, the minutes to hours
Eyelids growing heavy
A tapping on the roof from cool rain showers
That comes in full and steady

A lightning flash and a thunderous boom
Reveal feet beneath the door
An electric tension fills the room
From wall to ceiling to floor

On the door, a light tap-tap-tap
Dad lets out a nervously shaky breath
and grabs the rifle from off his lap
Kill or face your death

Through slits in the shutters he sees two eyes
Peering in and endlessly black
An ancient evil so truthful it lies
From a gunsight, the father stares right back

One shot to get the kill
On steadiness he would rely
Maybe it’d run wounded down the hill
Or fly into the sky to die

He cocks the hammer and takes a breath
And steadily zeroes in
He’s about to fire, to bring on death
But then he sees it grin

A grin of gnarly teeth and lips turned blue 
That reveals a truth, buried deep within
and speaks of an evil, ancient and true
That predates virtue and sin

An evil that turns a man to stone
And sucks breath from emptied lungs
that cuts through flopsweat then flesh then bone
That speaks without use of tongues

He fires the rifle right through the door
His family startles from their sleep
He hears a body fall to the floor
Outside a lifeless heap

He tears open the door and looks to the ground
Oh no, oh god, please don’t let this be…
At his feet, a lifeless mound
And a growing crimson sea

The mother shrieks in terror
“That’s our neighbor from down the hill!”
The father speechless at his grave error
A hunter ashamed of his kill

And in the distance he hears a howl
That echoes through the night
He sees the demon’s evil scowl
And then it’s out of sight

The silence that followed made him go pale
In a vacuum of space and sound
Ended by a beating chest and a heavenly wail 
The cry of no blessings found