Midnight's Maiden

I was in New Orleans several years ago and walked out of a restaurant after dark. The lady in front of me had a dress with sequins and, when we stepped outside, the lights there made the sequins sparkle and dance, and the lady nearly disappeared. I went back to our motel and wrote this poem.

Midnight’s Maiden

She is the night in sequined dress,
The one the daylight can't possess.
A fleeting shadow, misty, dark,
The midnight's maiden, lonely, stark.

As twilight comes she starts to dance,
A soaring, sparkling, circumstance
That dazzles all who venture there,
And holds their eyes in binding stare.

For underneath her swirling cloaks
The terror hides that she invokes
To fearsome souls who crave the light,
Who shrink when darkness soars in flight.

The stars and moon gaze down at her,
She, the nighttime's messenger,
Whose spell begins with setting sun,
Overwhelming everyone

That ventures forth to test her will,
And shivers in the darkness till
The morning dawns with rising sun,
Each new day's phenomenon.

The sequined dress now disappears
Into the dew, the nightime's tears,
Hiding till the time is right
And she, once more, becomes the night.