Island

Oct 31 2011

I am reading

in my accustomed chair

in a warm pool of light.

Late afternoon

in early fall

when night sneaks-up.

Surprised, to find myself

in cool dusk,

an incandescent cone

peering out.

Edges blur

objects merge,

the room

turns coarse-grained, porous.

I am marooned

on this agreeable island

of tightly circumscribed light,

cocooned

concentrated

sharp.

If I move

the illusion will break,

words

become incomprehensible.

When I return to the page

letters drift

into twilight air,

settle down

in random mounds

of alphabet.

Careful, stepping over them

I venture out,

leave the protected shore

navigate darkness

feel my way to the door.

And in a sudden flood of light

my private Atlantis

is no more.

This is a very agreeable state, indeed:  in my hermetic rarefied bubble, undistracted, sharply focused. I resent intrusion. But like most magical spells, it can be broken; and once broken, hard to revive.

Day can disappear, while I am oblivious to the passage of time. There is this feeling that if I disturb this pool of light, this tightly circumscribed cone, there will be no return.

But once I’ve noticed, it may be too late, and I start feeling impatient. The darkness seems decadent, degenerate, or even threatening. My bubble is lost.