In Autumn, 11:30 P.M.

[coy]

Every step's a pitter-patter,
merging with the crickets chatter.
Water sighs its murmured hymn,
surrounding stones always give in.
I trek above the vales high
and smile at an orange sky,
where afterglow has left its mark;
it pleads the world to stray from dark.
And this is when I make my stop,
to watch night eat the afterglow;
the singing from the crickets stops,
as night engulfs her victim, slow.
*/ thinking about changing the word "surrounding" in the last line of the first stanza to "eroding" if image comes across nebulous. /*

I think surrounding sounds better. Alliteration is always better in my opinion. So what I gather from this is that the speaker is walking through a valley near a river as the sun is setting. The title doesn't make sense to me given this imagery. I mean it's almost midnight, how can there be any afterglow in the sky? The victim the night is consuming has long been victimized. Maybe change the time frame of the title? Other than that the imagery is nice, but it is missing something important. I can't say what exactly, but your rhymed stanzas don't do anything in the "less is more" category". All I am getting is a bit of appreciation for nature, but where is the symbolism? What makes this small event so big for the speaker, other than inspiration for a few hastily written rhymes?

I wrote this poem with the intention of confronting the topic of suicide without sounding cliche. I didn't want to force that onto others, and thought it was interesting everyone responded saying they found beautiful imagery. In my area, the radiance from the sunset retains its hue in the sky until about 11:30 - 12. Hmm. Maybe I should make the title a more universal time.

I chose autumn, because it symbolizes the death of the year - all the leaves fall off of the trees. The symbolism for dark is the usual: sadness, despondence, depression. Dark overtakes the light at the end (Star Wars gone bad, xD). I also put the "singing from the crickets stops" to hint that the speaker might be dead. Only the speaker cannot hear the crickets, because crickets aren't going to stop chirping and gaze off into the night sky.

It's my fault for not executing this theme adequately. I just sprinkled little hints of the theme throughout, so it's understandable no one picked up on it. Typically, I wouldn't share all this, as I generally prefer not to invite people into my problems, but you asked.  Thanks for the response!