Meditation on solitude

The light along the bay burned through the night
as if to emphasize the dark, not tame
it, throw the hours upon slow fire and show
that one keeps watch, and may not sleep, as if
there hovered over him a stillness he
could not profane.

From each high moment's passing ecstasy
a stubborn and exasperating love
lurked underneath, fed by a god, perhaps.
There was a wrenching, nagging urge to change,
to weep for those who can no longer weep
and offer them the tears. He knew

that every soul who finds himself alone
upon the stage when pomp and circumstance
is over, then might contemplate the bag
of lenses that he took from all the years
before, and testing one.......his very own,
would look for some far palace on the hill.

Alas

The child of every age is prisoner
between soft barricades of stubborn self.
No wonder death is the escape of choice,
for everyone makes change of circumstance
but when the night arrives the walls still hold,
the shackles are secure and freedom is
a strange and distant song.

He would not sing to dawn, unthinkable.
For set apart, his journey was within,
the walls his covering, and their soft flesh
his eminent domain. And all we need
to see is just the light reflecting there
upon the water, through the endless night.
~