In this night, I'm not alone.

I feel the crowd pressing around me, shoulder to shoulder,
back to back, squeezing.

I feel the discomfort, the dread, the hope: "Maybe
it won't be what I sense it will
be. Maybe it won't be that."

Others may be sleeping, but we're moving together, conscious or not.
It might not be so bad.

It's dark and some are sleeping. We shift and move together.

Like it or not, we have some destination, together.

You sought to protect your children, but you brought them with you
into this crowd.

We many dread, but we don't know what, for sure.

And yet we know too much--we see the outlines from here,
silhouetted against a faded dawn.

The past and future come toward us,

inexorably slow,

almost in stillness,   soundless,

abstractly,