Sharp at the stroke of midnight there came an incessant banging on the door. The voice, so small and mournful cried, “Mamma let me in. Oh please, Mamma let me in. I am so cold.” Old Miriam lay like a doll made of rag and bone only her eyes moved with the words of her silent prayer slipping like ether from her parched lips into the night Inert she lay, deaf to the knocks on her door. The banging, the moaning, and Oh! That plaintive call. But Miriam stood her ground. She would not budge. She would not answer the door. For that was the promise she’d made to herself, years and years ago.

The midnight hour gonged. The toll trailed
away into a sepulchral silence. Footsteps
soon receded into the past and Miriam still
had tears enough left to weep as
her trembling fingers struck a match.

The flickering flame cast her shadow into a cruel
and frightful shape as she groped in her dresser
for certain precious things. Her hand found and clasped
a little gold locket that held to its heart a lock
of soft shiny hair. This she kissed, murmuring a prayer.

Old Miriam, held the candle high casting strange
and unholy shadows all around as she left
the house for an unbeaten path.
A wild abandoned place –
a Chapel and its yard dotted with graves.

Wet chilly fingers plucked at her cloak.
Miriam ignored the wind and rain. Shielding
the light of her candle, she hobbled
as fast as her bones could take. Miriam
soon reached the spot, where the smallest grave of all lay.

Gently she put the candle down
and gathered up the long dead flowers.
With a mother’s hands she cleaned and pruned.
She patted the ground, watered the mound.
Lit more candles. Said more prayers.

She buried fresh seeds so they would grow
under sun and rain and bring shade
to the little heart that lay down
beneath the gravestone brooding over its prize.
Miriam hoped the scent would spread far and wide

For the sake of the sweet child
that once romped so innocently
among the herbage, tending the flowers
and all things soft and tender
and sometimes wild.

Miriam shuddered as she remembered
that night and that first melancholy cry.
She had run out to the creature that seemed
to be in pain. And Miriam couldn’t stop her.
when she ran out heedless of the wind and rain.

Miriam ran after her on desperate feet, but she
was gone by then. Vanished like a specter. Except
for a finger nail, locks of her hair and
her pure heart left bleeding on wet turf, leaving
Miriam mad with grief and alone.

It’s been like this for years since. And every night
is the same. Special. Like no other night
in the village at whose edge Miriam’s cottage huddles
closeted among its weeds and longings, where
a howling wind rushes in banging

Only on Miriam’s door. The cry is heard by all
in the village and their bolts are drawn tight.
Likewise with Miriam who waits.
for the footsteps to pass. And then gets up to do
what she has been doing all these years past.