Speak Watchman, Speak

Awakened by the soreness
The pained numbness of limbs
Only now come to life
E’en though ’tis fleeting
On the watchtower
The vantage perspective
Where the mouth must speak what the eye does see –
The whole of its obligation just yet
Day began at yesterday’s dusk
Thousands of its kind I beheld
‘Tis but I who felt the deafening silence
On those long moon promenades
When the city slept in careless abandon
And know in my present obstinate self denial
That time has come
When the eyes must instead see
What the mouth does speak
The mouth of the mind –
Our strongest arsenal yet
In but little
I’ll see no more, speak no more
Another watcher will wear these shoes
Grateful for his today
As already I am of tomorrow
What next – the day after?
For now, speak watchman, speak