To the starry eyes who wink in the night,
lurking over empty solitary roads--
groaning pleas locked in impalpable shackles.

I unsteadily balance fear and prayer--juggling them
over each bony knuckle protruding
from ghostly white skin.

As I anxiously pull the wheel,
spry eyes dance between the hungry road
and the speedometer...

I fear the patient embers waiting to ignite in the darkness--
shall the chariot of fire roar from the gates of Hell tonight?
(I feel the weight of earth's calamity and Man's eternal sinful nature

amass atop my vessel,
sagging through the invisible tier,
mashing me farther and farther
beneath the wheel--
til I'm grounded meat within the gritty boulevard.)

And the embers snicker and flicker in the shadows of the endless night;
they prey on my fear like red-eyed vultures perched on scraggly branches--hunched, crooked spindly necks
crane menacingly into my windowpane.

But you, oh winking eyes of innocence who silently approaches me,
dragging across the gravel path on ****** knees--you like the presence of God in the burning bush, and I the meek shepherd in the wilderness!

Your urgent warning comes to me,
eclipsed within a single gesture--
in the brief moment the road swallows you up in darkness
as you shyly close your humble eyes in sincerity.

(The embers they know not of your betrayal,
with your back erected sternly towards them.)

In that instant I hid my face from you
and removed my sandals to stand atop holy ground.

Darkness soon broke, as your eyes again opened,
and in its radiance, an irrevocable axiom:

It is when a person walks at night that they stumble,
for they have no light.

It was then that I saw the light;
and in doing so I weaved the vitriolic embers--
those desperately seeking my spark to their ignite.