The asylum keeper's daughter
Moves slowly in the dark
Through the closed trees
To the centre of the park
Where she dances with the moonlight,
Long tresses of darkest dark hair
Streaming out like a living circle
As though to enclose her there;
And she prays for the inmates
With her improvised dance
Like a naked moving statue
With each ritualistic stance.
And the keeper of the asylum
Stirs in his troubled sleep
And the inmates in their cells
Silently lie and weep,
A purging of the emotions
In a cathartic release
That, just for that instant,
Brings a deep healing peace.
The asylum keeper's daughter,
In a homage token,
Bows low to the moon
As the spell is broken.
The feeling of peace
In the asylum ends
As once again
Lunacy descends.
The asylum keeper's daughter
Walks back with sad bowed head,
Makes one final obeisance before
Slipping quietly back into her bed.
And the moon in the sky
Sheds her reflected light
That just for a little while
Bathes the asylum a soft pure white
