The Weeping at Twilight

The Weeping at Twilight


The crying sound drifted through the twilight
some unseen girl, at first boo-hooing
that fake kind of crying children muster
and I, snug in my room, ignored it.
Then the sound became more throaty
more real than fake and it took on
that gasping sobbiness for which
there are no words. I grew disturbed
how it broke the twilight silence
and how old was she anyway,
hiding where in the dark?
Not a child, not by that dusky
sound of human pain.
I stopped what I was doing, got up,
and searched the twilight shrubbery
from my windows. No sign of her.
Then a wrenching howl
and faintly the words help me
reached my open windows.
I remembered then the nights
I sobbed in so much anguish
I cried out to the night help me,
help me, as if someone might hear
might come down and hold me.
Why did my heart then harden
to the cry of the girl in the twilight?
Perhaps because someone will come,
or someone will not come, and she
will survive this desperation;
she will stop sometime and rest,
and the twilight will swallow
all of this.

weeping girl painting by shruthi, age 11, at saatchi gallery uk