Day-Time Demons

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…


THE DAY-TIME DEMONS

Somewhere C.S. Lewis said that the demons of the day time strike at dawn. In his honor, and because I am on a first-name basis with these demons, I wrote this poem:

The demons of the day time strike at dawning
In the dark and inky yielding of the night
When the muscles of the soul are slack and yawning
When the strength of some good memory’s lost to sight

2
When the moon’s faint light has all but lost its glimmer
When the walls around the soul are weak and bare
They come when faith is slim and hopes are slimmer
When the guards are playing whist or solitaire

3
They come gunning for you even out of season
Doubts and fears and angst their stock in trade
They ask you if your life has any reason
Why despite your work you never made the grade

4
They say when you are hungry grab for bread
Seize the power to rule the world, except yourself
Top the temple with a crown upon your head
Put the shrunken heads of others on your shelf

5
They rally at the first faint glimmer of the dawn
Riding on the last weak gleams of murky moon
You must meet them at the door, drive them o’er the lawn
Else they will vex you ‘til their shift is done at noon

6
Then arrives the sneering demon of the noon time
Full of lunch and primed for slow lugubrious fray
It prepares to rub your soul in dull acedia grime
But that verse I’ll write later in the day

JRMcF

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!

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