no watchman

The Night Guard by Odd Nerdrum

The whole distance to be crossed was not above a quarter of a mile.
But they had no sooner debauched beyond the cover of the trees than
they were aware of people fleeing and screaming in the snowy
meadows upon either hand. Almost at the same moment a great rumour
began to arise, and spread and grow continually louder in the town;
and they were not yet halfway to the nearest house before the bells
began to ring backward from the steeple.

The young duke ground his teeth together. By these so early
signals of alarm he feared to find his enemies prepared; and if he
failed to gain a footing in the town, he knew that his small party
would soon be broken and exterminated in the open.

In the town, however, the Lancastrians were far from being in so
good a posture. It was as Dick had said. The night-guard had
already doffed their harness; the rest were still hanging -
unlatched, unbraced, all unprepared for battle - about their
quarters; and in the whole of Shoreby there were not, perhaps,
fifty men full armed, or fifty chargers ready to be mounted.

The beating of the bells, the terrifying summons of men who ran
about the streets crying and beating upon the doors, aroused in an
incredibly short space at least two score out of that half hundred.
These got speedily to horse, and, the alarm still flying wild and
contrary, galloped in different directions.

The Black Arrow, Ch 27
Robert Louis Stevenson

~|~ ~|~ ~|~ ~|~

there comes no warning in darkness
in the slip-slide of shadows over dips
and around corners

the cries of birds fade to whisper and shrills
call-out, call-out, to home,
until only the night starlings stand sentry

the sentry is gone silent
no watchman on the street
we will have no warning
when night become discrete

~mine 2007/07