I fear the fear of dark

is an unfounded cause

for it is not the shadow we fear

but what is contained in her claws


I step into the alleyway

a child of raucous night

the darkness reaches tendrils out

to grasp and kill the light


I stare into her rolling depths

entranced, admitted, yes

to find the fear contained in her

and perhaps make it less


I sit there staring for a while

accustomed to the dark

waning with the night so black

and take up shadow’s mark


until I see there sitting in

the billowing bank of cloud

a lonely thought of fear’s own cause

that none have spoke aloud


perhaps what we see in there

in darkness’ shadow grip

is the well of the unknown

we fear to take a sip


we fear the draught uncertainty

we hate the loss of knowing

which way our fates may turn tonight

between the shadows growing


indeed our fear is so simple

o reader of the rhyme

that we fear what not we know

and let it grow o’er time


to let the child known as doubt

rear up in our mind

and release it in our eye

when we see darkness’ kind


I kept my vigil for a while

stupefied in thought

at what might happen if sometime

the fear of nought unwrought


And though this was a merry thought

the realist would deny

that any hope of such release

is more than hopeless lie


and so I checked the wandering mind

strolled back unto the walk

and said goodbye to shadow man

as though the man could talk


but even as my back was turned

my eye keen to the world

the darkness reared behind my head

and wings of black unfurled


but do not fear o reader

for though he meant me dead

He was but unknown manifest

who lived within my head