Kierkegaardian Night

You can testify to the hills
old sport; you've done well.
You've survived another night
of distorted sleep---mishapen slumber,
sweaty ideas, bloated theorems . . .

Hah! Now it's morning, and yesterday
is but the remnant of a pillow
stained with slobber and tears.

But you are happy, aren't you,
that death fled like a vampire
before the softest glow of dawn?

(At the cross, at the cross
I sought the warming light;

But the sigh is brief, isn't it?
This is familiar ground---
the edge of a new darkness
where the rugged tree casts no shadow.

at the cross, at the cross,
I felt the chill of night).