Violation - April 18 2022

 

Violation

April 18 2022

In the predawn darkness

when the world sleeps

and the stillness seems eternal

I am overcome

by a sense of unreality,

ghosting through the crisp cold air

in glorious solitude,

unobserved

and all my senses alert,

time immaterial.

A science fiction world,

instantly zapped

into suspended animation

but somehow sparing me;

where I slip by frozen bodies, stopped mid-stride,

gaze at faces, locked in smiles,

pass cars, immobilized

in an eerily arrested tableau,

like children's toys

but without the vroom-vroom

and screech of brakes.

It feels like a waking dream

a meditation.

What a privilege

to inhabit the world this way,

in the dead of night

the morning dregs.

The empty street.

The necklace of poles,

each in its own small pool

of incandescent light.

The signal lamps, clicking mechanically

through green, yellow, red

as if it still matters.

The darkened windows

gazing blankly out.

My footsteps

echoing off the asphalt

and sounding too loud;

like breaking glass

in a dim monastery

where the silent monks

have retired to their prayers.