Into the Light by Mara Lemanis

Into the Light by Mara Lemanis  

 

 

Into the Light

 

Dark

it is

a dark night

when the Book of Life

hides from me

its manifold light

limitless

like the light

of myriad melting suns

and I only see

an atlas from

the Book of Numbers

flat figures on

the round earth’s

jagged peaks

the spinning lodestone

that binds the fallout

from the stars

to its dense melt

as reams of calculations

distribute lists

of all that grows

builds itself

up from the bed of melts

all that swims, floats, sinks

all that speaks

or sounds the

language of birthright

all that crouches, crawls

walks, dances,

and grows still

like sand

pressed into stone.

They fill the logs

I scan

sums and losses

drawing shutters

over the Book of Life.

I wait

through the dark night

wait for the manifold light.

I blow out the pale flame

flickering

like a stingy sun

flinging

long gaunt tongues

of practiced bursts

slick inventories

records foregone.

I blow out the spent light

and step inside

a vaulting incandescence

flawless

unrecorded

in the pioneer

blaze of life

 

--Mara Lemanis

 

 Images: 1) Edward Hopper - Rooms by the Sea, 2) Light