The Dark

Small children know to fear the dark.
They know this instinctively,
for the fear is primitive, the fear
of monsters is encoded in their genes.
Parents assure there is nothing to fear,
but this applies only to the safety
of their room, of their secure house.

Outside there is still plenty to fear.
For at night…in the dark…
Man loses dominion over the land.
Familiar terrain becomes treacherous.
In the darkness Man is vulnerable.
He becomes an easy meal for savage beasts,
beasts with vastly superior hearing,
better night vision, a keener sense of smell,
or infrared sensors to detect his body heat.
He becomes their prey.

Early Man hid in caves huddled around fires
to survive the night, the world outside given
over to the predators -- bears, lions, wolves,
snakes -- that prowled hungry in the night.
Modern Man actually does the same…
without recognizing it as such.
He stays inside his house, inside his car,
under city lights – places where there is light,
where he has the advantage over the beasts.
However, put him into any wilderness area…
without a way to light the darkness…
and he will know the fear,
the fear of being the weaker animal,
the fear of becoming prey.

Urban Man lives with a fragile confidence
of his security at night, a veneer of safety
in a city without animal predators at hand.
Yet, let the electricity fail and throw him
into darkness with only a candle or flashlight
to pierce the blackness of night and ancient
memories of predators that prowl the dark
begin to penetrate his mind. A sense of
discomfort grows within him…for he knows
that monsters really do prowl the darkness.