Night Walk  ©

I am familiar with the night 

on village streets that no one

walked,  the soldiers on watch

beneath raining clouds, the nuns

in habit making haste and old

women bent over stoves that 

feed hungry faces. I have walked

by churches delivering street songs,

passing the saddest alleys where the

homeless rest,  paused beneath the 

brightest lampposts to look up at a

twilight sky searching it for divine 

signs. I have greeted children playing

football on the street,  listened to them

in loudest laughs,  sat quietly hearing

stories from the untaught and measured

what blessings carried by the wind to 

me.   I have walked the dark streets 

with no one around, talked with God 

about the fatally divided earth, expected 

to hear heavenly words from the maker 

of things like mercy, pity, hope, peace, 

justice and love. I ended not far from

the stroll start and sat beneath a mango

tree and reached for a mature flower 

pushing through cracks on a bottom 

step that revealed something deeper

with silence.   

h. j. Recinos