{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.