Night Thoughts

PAD Challenge Day 4: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Night (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. 

"These are night-thoughts.

The day will wash them away"

Quote from; From Larkrise to Candleford 

Through chasms carved with what is not

They rush; frail flood-gates yield to thought

That daylight’s barricades had barred

But midnight’s maelstroms disregard

And would wreak havoc in the Place

That cups our mustard seed of faith

…for something about darkness wakes

A world immune to masquerades

It strips bravado down to size

As fear rallies its troop of lies

To thunder through thought’s sleepless form

With ‘what ifs’ agonizing storm

And were it not for prayer to keep

A Shepherd’s watch on thought-shaped sheep

And were it not for grace to guard

The fold those night-fiends disregard

We could not ward off wolves that wait

To break in and annihilate

So when I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord His watch to keep

And guard me from the beasts that lurk

When I have set aside my work

Where love and longing carve an ache

That sometimes night-thought’s overtake

© Janet Martin