Darkness Speaks

I had stopped along the road one day for reasons still not known
Looking beyond a bog, into the deep, dark woods found there
On this autumn evening a feeling chilled me to the bone
As the shadows grew longer and my breath hung in the air

The wind was cold that autumn day as I looked into those woods
Reminding me of winter's approach in due time to arrive
The fading light, the shadows, the wind made me shiver still more
Together with my mind these things did conspire and contrive

Perhaps it was a trick of light that confused me as I stood
But something soon caught my attention, soon I was aware
Of a face! A face! I know I saw! There in the tangled brush!
That faded when I looked again where I once saw its stare

I gasped and turned to walk away, convinced it was just nerves
Playing with my mind the way that anxiety sometimes can do
The wind picked up, carrying a voice that sounded in the leaves
A voice so faint but clear that I felt shivered through and through

"You know me well, you always have", the voice in whispers spoke
"You know that I am always there, barely a heartbeat away
You see me yet I'm not really there, your mind knows this is true
The feelings that you feel tell you that I am real as day...

"Those shadows that make you stop and look again with pause
That sometimes appear to come perhaps at the oddest time and places
The creak of the floor, the squeaking door, that make the bumps arise
Those times like these when you know you've seen my many faces...

"For I am the absence of all light, but not the nightly sky,
With thousands of stars it is still blinding when compared to me
No, not the night but something else you fear, you just can't see me still,
Hiding in plain sight and everywhere yet somehow you still can't see...

"For I am darkness, eternal, still, infinite and yet confined"

The voice soon faded from my ears as the wind died down
Leaving but the clattering leaves blowing down along the lane
The Sun appeared one last time as the clouds blew on by
Yet in my mind that voice I heard in a haunting refrain...

"For I am darkness, eternal, still, infinite and yet confined...
For I am darkness, eternal, still, infinite and yet confined...
For I am darkness, eternal, still, infinite and yet confined..."