Quietest Hour

Slow, careful steps
Narrow path
Broken pavement
Winding course

Quietest hour
Moon obscured
Dark ahead
Dark below

Remain upright
Continue forward
Into the nothing
Where something waits

Ears prick up
To pick up sounds
Rustling leaves
Slumbering frogs

Eyes adjust
In the inky black
Pupils widen to
Measure the surround

There in the darkness
In the quietest hour
On a broken, winding
Path she walks ahead

She learns the terrain
She deciphers the sounds
She finds sources of light
She becomes one with the night