Midnight Soul and Hay Meadow Heart 

Night comes creeping softly 
Like a ghost descending the stairs 
Dragging reluctant shadows behind it 
With a dark beauty that mystifies reality; 
Flooding my being with midnight skies 
And lining the walls of my soul 
With planets, suns, orbiting moons, swirling 
Nebulas and covering the Sistine ceiling of my soul 
With the layers of a million Milky Ways. 
My super-conscious is a blackness 
Lighted by a billion twinkling stars. 
There is just room enough left in my psyche 
To fill each crevice with the scent of new mown hay 
And the site of the burgeoning meadows of home 
Over-flowing the memory banks of my heart. 



Night and Its Shadows 

Night has come and shadows pace 
The corridors of forgotten memories 
And stops at the door of the vault 
Where unused dreams are stored. 
The shadow of longing whisks by 
The faint light left glowing 
On the memories of timeless love; 
The preciousness so close to the soul; 
That can never be forsaken 
Nor cast into the mists of time 
Unspoken, unused or wasted 
Or left waiting for the eyes of love 
To open and see what they never saw 
When longing was young and fresh as dew 
And dripping sweetness so heartbreakingly new 
And never gathered to an intended’s pulsing breast. 
Now the shadows glean the aftermath 
Of unrequited love and endless dreams 
Trapped like lost souls endlessly 
Seeking to find the elusive heart 
For whom they were always meant. 

Annie Johnson is 84 years old. She is Shawnee Native American. She has published two, six hundred-page novels and six books of poetry. Annie has won several poetry awards from world poetry organizations including; World Union of Poets; she is a member of World Nations Writers Union; has received the World Institute for Peace award; the World Laureate of Literature from World Nations Writers Union and The William Shakespeare Poetry Award. She received a Certificate and Medal in recognition of the highest literature from International Literary Union for the year 2020, from Ayad Al Baldawi, President of the International Literary Union. She has three children, two grandchildren, and two sons-in-law. Annie played a flute in the Butler University Symphony. She still plays her flute.