(I'm trying to outrun the rain)
(It's so humid.)
It's like the sky is trying to hold something back
and now she's starting to cry.

(Realized how much I missed walking at night.)

She waits until half the world's asleep.
The sky?
And then confides to the earth
Because everyone is fearless in the night.

But they're gentle loving tears,
and the earth catches her.
There is no daylight to mar the distance between them with shadows.

She's not mad.
And quietly, she tells the earth her secrets--
all that she has seen when the sun was by her.
and the earth listens.
intently.
thoughtfully.

Doesn't the earth whisper back?
Doesn't it have its own secrets to share?

No.
but that was always enough.
the sky never needed an answer,
she just needed the clouds to part.
because somehow the sky always knows.
like a sister never needing words.
she cries tears not hers alone.
she mourns for the earth who can never cry.

The sky and the earth have never really been apart,
have they?
But the night is theirs
and theirs alone,
its silence unbroken
by the noise of human minds.
And the few people who walk the night let them.

no, they never were.
nor were they ever together.
what would the sky be if she was the earth?
or the earth the sky?
they were inseparable
and yet
always separate.

infinities between them.
and in each infinity
are the worlds of dreaming children
and for a moment, she stops crying.

and in the silence,
a child continues walking.

Do they have to be the same?
Can they not leave a gap between them
and still stay together?

the child is not alone,
and never was.
he is joined by many others who
walk the night
with him.
some
with open eyes,
others
breathing in rhythm.
and in the boundlessness between the earth and the sky,
they are all connected.

The child does not walk in silence.
He knows the night,
has seen all its faces
of terror
and beauty
and torment
and dreams.

dreams that each the sky has seen.

With the earth and the sky's secrets
woven into each:
a present for a friend.

the sky has ceased crying.
and in the wake,
her tears flow into the heart of the earth.
and the earth collects them,
that the sky may weep them out again.

Then the earth is not silent after all.

quiet, but not silent.

the child thirsts
and finds the tears the sky has wept.
but they are too bitter for him to drink.

They were never meant for him,
The sky carries far greater burdens
than any earthling can bear,
secrets far too powerful for his mind to comprehend.
Not yet, anyway.

silence

and in it
the earth sings to the sky.
the earth [sings] for the earth cannot speak.
and the sky wells up in the beauty of the song.

And the child sits in between them,
absorbing the music.
Selah
Let the universe pause a moment.
Let it breathe.

for a time will be reached
when the child shall share in the cup
of sky's tears.
he too,
shall have no more questions.
but until then,
the child walks.

And until then,
he is a child.

The child walks into a neighborhood of lights.
with hues too numerous
for him to name or even distinguish,
each one desperately tries to outshine his brother.
and the lights see him
and greet him--
an unwelcome visitor.

How so?

for under the lights
are other children:
blinded but seeing,
they have sight with much illumination,
but are lost without a vision.
the child walks among them
but they don't see him,
for he is not their own.
the lights captivate
and held captive
they were.
the child calls out to them
but they cannot hear.

for these are children
who listen with their eyes
and feel with their tongue.
each follows a different light--
the ones that have so rejected the child.
but it changes nothing
for the child
follows a different light,
the light the sky has shown hi,.

They are trapped
in the pretense of day,
in the false promise that everything is within their sight.
And they
somehow
believe
that all they see is theirs.
They know not how to travel in the shadows,
because they
have never befriended the night.

they have never seen
the weeping of the sky, nor
heard the singing of the earth.

It is in the night
that one learns to listen,
to eavesdrop
on the secrets
the sky and the earth
whisper
as the universe sleeps.
Though not without their notice.

they whisper loud enough for those who want to hear.

And for those who have earned their respect.
Some drag them
into the scorching gaze of sunlight,
and cast shadows
large enough
strong enough
to swallow hearts whole.

(Say hello to the night for me. I missed its embrace.)
(the night waits still)