Night spreads out the truth about Time.
It’s cold and endless;
leaves you so much nothing you don’t want the light on.
Well, maybe a candle or a small oil lamp;
enough to sip some coffee by.
But even then, not a voice.
If there could be someone else,
you’d want them to be there quietly.
Not too close, wearing old clothes.
So, even as day reaches for a wrap,
it's just a fading Venus, a worn-out Dog,
and a half-light draped over
books, calendar, my father’s gloves ....
But we get folded into all this.
It’s either that or get unwrapped –
and not by more of the same.
No, not by dawn-blush and birdsong.
Thanks hopeful day for licking my face,
but I don’t need another wash.
Because don't you get that highway feeling?
Like you’re trapped in traffic,
lifetimes wide, just grinding on?
And that the ‘it’ that isn’t going to end
never began anytime, anyplace?
Do you ever get to lose your wheels?
And just be hanging there –
like you’re a nowhere?
But as a world barrels through
your potted plans, your nest of thoughts
about life and love and truth ...
it's then the hard light tells you:
rub the nothing out of your eyes.
‘Where?’ doesn’t matter anymore.
You have to start walking.