The Sunday Poem: Life Before Light

Today we got back from a few days camping in the mountains with the Cub Scouts. It was fairly warm during the day and quite cold at night, particularly since last night the Santa Ana winds prevented us from having campfires. I played guitar anyway, fingers numb enough to serve as picks.

Wandering the campsite at 3am, unable to sleep, I was struck by the sight of the Milky Way, something our modern world hides from us.

Life Before Light

At night without a lamp, the trees are ghosts;
They loom, they lurk, they fractally recurse.

In depths of shadows howls move, the wolves
Of fear, the snakes of scare, the crows of death.

Come six, the day abed. Come eight, the dark.
And with it, gods: Unknown, Unshaped, Unseen.

What glory dawn has been and is no more!
The restoration of the world we lost.

A scant few decades past this was the world:
A dance of flame to keep the night apart.

And now, our lamps cast pools, candesce, penumb.
The dark is where we hide, where once it hid.

Horizons fade. Our blindness lost, we lose
The splash of Milky Way across the sky.