by Phil Cotnoir

As night’s majestic silence swallows day
angelic moonlit faces peaceful lay
my conscience robbed thereof by daytime’s flight
to brink and break and points beyond what’s right.

When scroll of time in time’s unfurled
and meas’ring eye t’wards past is curled
I fear to know that estimation
fear the nearing accusation
for childhood like a veil obscures
what then will be in need of cures.

My son and daughters love without
a thought to merit or a doubt
their father is the very best
esteemed adored above the rest.
I know this myth cannot persist,
life’s rising sun shall melt the mist.

Gently’s best if you don’t mind
lest I, myself at once do find
esteemed in opposite proportion
to the 'riginal distortion
despised by they who once adored
severing family’s sacred cord.

I’ve seen it happen, felt the pull
to open gates of feeling full
Unleash heart’s currents without rein
of truth adorned by bitter pain.
To reap regret as failure’s harvest
is all I see in future’s farthest.

This dark concern has brimmed my mind with care
eclipsing thought of He through all is there
and lone can weave with bent stalk and bruised reed
a blessed masterpiece: for this I kneel and plead.

Phil Cotnoir is a husband, a father of four, an avid reader, a freelance writer and editor, a graduate of Heritage College (Ontario), and has served as an elder in his church near Montreal. He works in the world of industrial automation (robots, gizmos, blinking lights) and blogs at www.philcotnoir.com.