*
Seemingly Endless Night
By Jane Tawel
February 11, 2026
*
This morning the darkness clung to the earth
like a shroud.
Shrouded myself
in a bathrobe, tattered and greyed,
I had welcomed the rain
and embraced the night’s sweet repose
listening to welcome-water in a dry land.
*
But the dawn didn’t come on schedule
and as I sat in habits
of coffee drunk and ideas thunk,
I began to despair
at this seemingly endless night.
Perhaps we had finally, inevitably
used-up all the light?
*
The horizon is still,
and stilly pitchy
like an upturned bowl
filled with dead ravens;
a sky darkened,
deep as the deepest
cavern of coal
starless, and moonless
and sunless.
And the neighbors’ windows
are shuttered and closed against me,
soot-covered
from fires in hearths
and fires in bellies
lonesome and long-extinguished.
*
What if the sun never rises again?
I imagine the deaths
of plants
and trees
and children
and you and me.
How frail we are
spending decades
never imagining our death.
Unless a seed is planted
in the dark earth and it dies,
the plant cannot flower and live.
Dark and Light —
The paradox
of Death and Life —
we balance quite precariously here.
*
Ah, World,
Ah, Beautiful World,
Forgive me for
my constitutional complacency.
And I offer up
a soundless keening
for all who have lived
in Nights that must seem endless.
And I pray as One,
for One and All:
“Let there be Light”.
Today is Eden
or not at all.
© Jane Tawel, 2026
Jane Tawel 