No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light.
Luke 11:33
1.
night forest restless with autumn
and insect chants
the sound of distant drums
from band practice
overhead the dark canopy
glittering with stars
a train horn’s one-of-a-kind chord
returns me to myself
under an old mother oak
wind paging through the leaves
before moonrise in a woods
as dark as a womb
2.
look what the moon has done
with borrowed light
recycled from that workhorse
with its quotidian round
a light that savors
instead of swallowing whole
oh little white pill
what visions will you precipitate
so this tendril of wakefulness
can corkscrew inward
a reverse heliotropism toward
whatever resists illumination
the unexamined life
like volcanic glass
lightweight and porous
a stone that floats
