{The Waking Hour}
It is dark in the middle of the night
The street lamps are dim
The houses on my street are long silent
And I am still waking
My curtains are tightly drawn.
I sit, illuminated with false light
As shadows wrap around my room.
{They stretch out beside me easily}
The soundless existence I occupy persists,
Only joined by the soft sighs
Of a vastly empty house
worn with age still unseen.
I leave the muted darkness.
My mind takes me beyond
Into misty mornings and vivid sunrise.
{I have never experienced dawn}
In these after hours, I drift
Through motions I had forgotten
Yet I have not learned:
An intrinsic instinct discovered.
A memory brings me back
through the twilight, into myself.
{I think of daylight hours
That waste away in midnight dreams}
Whimsy threatens my awareness,
Dragging me under the waves
Before I dare break the surface
Of effortless understanding
Even as I rest on the precipice,
I make my home between dusk and dawn
In ethereal complacency
Suspended by my mind’s own insistence.