He waited until the Moon was high
And its beam shone on the sand,
Telling himself the time was nigh
He could overcome the land,
But everyone slept beneath the Moon,
Their minds were out of reach,
Except for the girl who stayed awake
And wandered along the beach.

Her mind was a well of confusion
There was love and there was pain,
She’d only done it the once, she thought,
But never she would again,
She thought of the sense of boundless joy
It gave when the love was there,
And how it crashed like a broken toy
When it gave way to despair.

And all the while he had watched the girl
From his vantage point on high,
Peering from his coal-black wings
In the dark of the evening sky,
Her thoughts he was carefully sifting
To glean what he could of use,
‘What was this thing called love,’ he thought,
‘It must be a term of abuse!’

And then a panicky wave of pain
Had hit him out of the blue,
How could she feel such love again
When the pain came seeping through,
He tried to stop but he couldn’t block
She was too intense for that,
His wings were quivering, dark and shivering
Like a giant bat.

He tried to impress his mind on her
As often he’d done before,
But found that distress was more or less
What she was looking for,
She dumped her pain in the darkening sky
And thought that she saw some wings,
As he crashed into a raging sea
In wonder at what love brings.

David Lewis Paget