when only crickets and owls

are singing a summer serenade,

do you question why you are here,

pen in hand struggling for the correct cadence,

searching a thesaurus for just one more way to describe

these hours of Stygian darkness?

The 0100 train whistles to the west,

warning at each cross roads there is no stopping this engine.

Perhaps this is why we are here in the dead of night –

to describe the desperate loneliness in that whistle’s sound.