Dark - March 9 2023

 

Dark

March 9 2023

The new streetlights

bleed colour from the world.

Their thin light

is cool, flat, monochrome.

And though it's brighter

seems to more quickly decay,

as if their rogue photons

could somehow evade

the law of inverse squares.

The whiteness offends the eye,

a harsh clinical light

that leaves me feeling scrutinized,

a full body X-ray

interrogating me

as I walk the dogs each night.

But efficiency rules,

and they are long-lived and miserly.

I'd much prefer it dark.

Just the stars.

Whatever fragment of moon

is waning or waxing.

And when it's overcast

the stray light

that spills from the windows

of the warm and cozy houses

that line the street,

set back

behind large majestic trees

and well-kept lawns.

I would walk

and see inside,

fleeting glimpses

into private places and intimate lives

who wouldn't be curious about.

Which, knowing me, I'd sometimes judge

but more often find I'm envious of.

At least here

there would be colour

depth

life.

And outside, if I had my way

the world as it was

before artificial light

and antiseptic landscapes.

A dark and mysterious place

of shifting shadows, hidden depths,

where ghostly trees loom

and lawns are silvered with dew.

Where time seems much less urgent,

and the world is reduced

to only what I can see.

And where I would walk

through the cool night air

incognito,

my senses heightened

eyes at rest.

These new LED streetlights are more environmentally responsible, and presumably cheaper. But they're also hard on the eyes, as well as aesthetically unpleasant.

For a few nights, some electronic glitch had shut them down along a stretch of my street. The natural light was lovely; the darkness far more comfortable for me.