In these quite hours I find my solace,
as though I am privy to something the sleeping world is not.
A silence.
A peace.
A consciousness equitable to everyone else's dream,
where I process knowingly what they lose with sleep.
- it is untrue, perhaps. But I do experience
the hours that everyone else forgets.

The busy mornings mean nothing to me.
- when everyone rises the same and trudges the same
and sees the same empty light.
I hear the wind no one else knows is there.
I see the ally cats find excitement on pale streets.
I watch the new snow fall
and hear the old trains pass
and feel the dark trying to show me something.

The most serene moments of my life
have come in sharing these hours with someone dear:
- the wind in the trees under the streetlamp glare,
as we, sheltered by a porch, bundled against the autumn dark,
whisper among the pillows and blankets.
- the soft rain and growing light of a Saturday morning,
the sound of an early riser's engine through your bedroom window;
skin on skin for the first time.

I am awake when you are asleep.
The things of which you are not aware, I am.
These hours bring me closer to God.