Night & Day

The night

should never be feared.

It’s been a faithful kind of

friend who’s been misread,

oversees

our bodies’ healing

in our sleep,

allows our beloved

passed to come & visit

in our slumber.

Our pupils swell

like grapes when dark

has seeped, this black that

never burns

or blinds our sight,

the stars like

counted sheep,

remind us of our

place in this expanse;

for it’s in the high of day

that cancer lurks in

every ray, when the red

of spilling blood

is clearly seen,

when the

damage from the storm

is cruelly tallied,

that the dead

are stacked in heaps

up to the sun—

so far and

yet so close

in lifted light.

Andreas Gripp

April 21, 2025

Andreas Gripp