Every sky is blue,

When the clouds have been skimmed

from its top.

Every garden is lovely,

when new flowers are sitting in its lap.

But sometimes,

on a yet fragrant summer night,

the air may grow chill,

until even the stoical moon,

wrapped in her bit of sun-warmed light,

disappears.

Then darkness reaches way down close,

burrows deep into the place

where morning blossoms have been,

and bumps again

into old pain.

Laura Scribner, Goshen, NY, 1925-2015