Was I scared of the dark? I asked myself
As I watched the irregular behaviour of the setting sun,
Whose rays had warmed the faces of bed sheets,
Shaking off the slumbers of weary travellers,
Their stories wrung out and left to dry,
Unraveled by the anatomy
Of an unwise sunset.
I didn’t trust the evening edged in gold,
The darkening circles of the approaching night.
So I lay on my back, fixing my eyes
On the spaces between stars
As Orion became a constellation,
Pacing along the edge of time.
Across the threshold,
Unraveling the skybones,
the anatomy of a dream,
Flickers of events
on the faultline of my life,
Idle moments
Torn open by earthquakes,
Casting nightfall on a tentative yesterday,
Extinguishing memories of tomorrow
Behind the riddle of the clouds.
As the constellations sang
A choir of forgetfulness,
I became a cartographer of memory,
Tracing my footprints in the sand,
Upturning sunken reefs and pebbles,
Chasing seamist mirages,
Sifting pillars of salt through my fingertips
As the waves rolled above
And the sea foam lapped around my ankles.
With each new breath,
The arrival of implacable gifts;
Driftwood sculptures and sandcastles
Embalmed along the shore.
The atoms of my shadows
Dissolve into negatives,
A submerged self portrait
That waxes and wanes
As I walk ahead of myself
In perpetual expectancy of miracles,
Refracting the light of another
And mistaking it for my own reflection.
I wandered alone in the waiting room of the sleeping mind,
Comforted by the echoes of trees.
As my eyes adjusted to the shadows
I began to see the dust of constellations,
Mosaics scattered along tree roots and creek beds, calling out an unearthly green hue,
Whispering transfigured equations
as they spun me into their web,
Revealing the soft geometry of chance
That lies within the darkness
Obscured by the light of day.
These midnight suns never set.
The following are artworks by James Gleeson that inspired this poem:
Irregular Behaviour of a Setting Sun (1996)
The Anatomy of an Unwise Sunset (2005)
Evening edged in Gold (1986)
Approaching Night (1992)
Orion Becomes a Star (1961)
Across the threshold (1958)
Anatomy of a Dream (1995)
