Why Does It Have To Be This Way?


One time I heard Pat Gibson say,
	(With a bit of sadness)
The problem she had with what she called,
	"That old 'Midnight Madness'".

And I thought, "Here we are
	In Natural Bridge, Virginia.
Who can account for the thoughts
	Or feeling that are within ya'?"

The Old Greeks called it the Muses
	And how they loved to haunt you.
I tend to think it is some demon
	That is sent to taunt you.

For when my wife is sleeping
	And snoring soft and low
I often rise from my bed
	And to my computer go

Is it the rhythm of her breathing
	Or the pounding of my heart
That make the rhyming to begin,
	That makes the thoughts to start?

When the house is quiet
	With just the ticking of the clock,
There are no possible interruption to 
	Suddenly my thoughts block.

It may be midnight to all others
	But sleep has left my head.
I have returned to the computer
	And left my wife in bed.

Thank God I have no typewriter
	Like the IBM with a ball,
For my typing would be heard
	Down in City Hall!

Yet while my thoughts are raging
	And the rhymes flow thick and fast
Still just before I have finished
	My wife awakes at last..

Her patience seems to be missing
	Her words cut like a knife
As she tells me that my computer
	Is like a second wife!

I try to reassure her
	And returning to our bed
I lay quite still beside her
	With the rhymes still in my head.

And so I slip so softly
	Trying not to disturb her
Knowing that what I am about to do
	Would surely quite perturb her.

For all the words that cram the head
	Can not be stifled now.
The poem must be finished.
	I don't know why or how.

For sleep, you see, has left me
	And my eyes are open wide.
I would rather be now sleeping
	With my lady by my side.

But someone else has chosen the time
	And he has given the work I'm doing,
The work that must be finished
	Before the sleep I am pursuing.

And when the last period is typed
	And I breathe a sigh of gladness
For now I can rest for I have passed the test
	That folk call "Midnight Madness".

Dr.Van Feb. 1998