Basket Case
No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light.
night forest restless with autumn and insect chants
the sound of distant drums from band practice
overhead the dark canopy glittering with stars
a train horn’s one-of-a-kind chord returns me to myself
under an old mother oak wind paging through the leaves
before moonrise in a woods as dark as a womb
look what the moon has done with borrowed light
recycled from that workhorse with its quotidian round
a light that savors instead of swallowing whole
oh little white pill what visions will you precipitate
so this tendril of wakefulness can corkscrew inward
a reverse heliotropism toward whatever resists illumination
the unexamined life like volcanic glass
lightweight and porous a stone that floats