Patterns

<br>The night sets softly<br>With the hush of falling leaves,<br>Casting shivering shadows<br>On the houses through the trees,<br>And the light from a street lamp<br>Paints a pattern on my wall,<br>Like the pieces of a puzzle<br>Or a child`s uneven scrawl.<br><br>Up a narrow flight of stairs<br>In a narrow little room,<br>As I lie upon my bed<br>In the early evening gloom.<br>Impaled on my wall<br>My eyes can dimly see<br>The pattern of my life<br>And the puzzle that is me.<br><br>From the moment of my birth<br>To the instant of my death,<br>There are patterns I must follow<br>Just as I must breathe each breath.<br>Like a rat in a maze<br>The path before me lies,<br>And the pattern never alters<br>Until the rat dies.<br><br>And the pattern still remains<br>On the wall where darkness fell,<br>And it`s fitting that it should,<br>For in darkness I must dwell.<br>Like the color of my skin,<br>Or the day that I grow old,<br>My life is made of patterns<br>That can scarcely be controlled.