Dark shadow! For I would hide in thee
And keep thy black ink mantle
Thou art the key to safe for me
You guide me without candle
Till I emerge in yonder place
As safe I reach my front-door handle.

But in the thunderous windswept nights
Whence thou seems blacker still
I travel through thee filled with fright
And think that thee would do me ill
And thus I rush and tarry nay
To pass thee by in haste
I travel now on lighted way
And keep thy shadowed ink at bay.

©Joe Wilson – In dark shadow…2015

(In the style of Edgar Allan Poe after re-reading ‘To the River’ 1829)