Founded Fears

I watch as the vitality of the day slips
into the grey lazy vagueness of dusk.
 
In the backyard next door,
some kids are banging on half a 44 gallon drum
and baying like dogs before collapsing
onto the warm grass in a faint of giggles.
Are they aware of the power of chants,
of just what they might have
inadvertently conjured up out of the ether,
the dark realities between everything?
 
It’s easy to scoff at such thoughts
when the sun is high and bright,
when darkness is but a shadow
cast by holding my hand up to my eyes.
But the gloaming
brings back those ancient
suppressed fears and along with it
come those horrors we dismiss as folk stories.
 
The kids rise up from the ground,
spirited away by a distant mothers call.
I wonder if its love or the lash impelling them
then quickly decide it must be love (love, love)
as the kids seem eager to obey.
The space they leave behind
is darkening quicker than everything around it;
a shadow’s shadow cast by joy removed.
 
I close my window and pull down the blind
hoping incandescent light will be enough to save me.