The light that
is coming.
If it were possible to read this by starlight, then these words, recently put down, would be lit by light that was first created millions of years ago.
​
What an odd thought, as we hang here in the sky, and do what we do.
They say that newborns see in black and white at first.
This being their first encounter with light.
It seems to miss a few important things that light has already offered, and given them.
​
As your mother sits in a chair, you growing inside her, she closes her eyes and faces the sun.
Her cheeks are warmed. Her capillaries relax.
An infinitesimal warmth enters her bloodstream, which enters your blood stream, so it goes.
Even inside of her you are connected to the sun.
This will never change.
​
You lay out on the grass. Fresh from the beach.
Skin crackling with salt, as the wet part of the sea dries from you.
You lay completely covered, under a towel.
Your favourite towel, adorned with designs of shells and crustaceans.
When you look at the sun through the tiny holes in the towel the light divides into bokeh.
​
A pattern that you don't understand.
​
Has the fine bright light picked up the back of your eye and projected it forth?
Why can you see your eyelashes magnified in front of you?
You lay entranced.
​
This little show goes on and on as the light warms, dries, and fascinates you.
All the while it fuels the hungry grass around.
You missed lunch that day.
Fluorescent light of the hospital.
Lights of the elevator.
Lights on the machines sending messages that your young mind does not understand.
Where to stand, what to do, what is happening?
​
Why is she wrapped in a shiny metallic blanket?
​
Two packs a day. She dies soon.
​
The light that shone on your back as you ran around the yacht squadron fishing, jumping, looking and lurking. Up to no good. Or no good at what you were up to.
The epic poo you did there in the toilet block. A bit painful.
The occasional constipation of youth.
The skin as it peeled off your back in massive flakey scales.
Each one a meal.
You remember, remembering the way the skin peeled off of your back so uniformly. So perfect.
Never to fall off the same way again.
New skin. First skin. Last skin.
​
Thin light through the shed door. At grandpa Alf's, where everything was possible, and ready to be made.
The musky place, with jars stuck by their lids to the underside of shelves.
All full of useful things. Bolts. Nuts. All arranged.
​
And what was that yellow powder? Something that helped the plants to grow?
Or the bugs on plants to die? So many useful items. Order in the chaos. Repose.
A different hospital, is it years apart?
The same scenario of artificial lighting.
'Water on the lungs' they said.
Alf's passing was peaceful. As was Alf.
Your first great loss.
​
The hug of a stranger.
A stranger who was there.
The release.
So big. Tidal. Let it out.
He has gone.
What a huge departure.
Old light shone on him.
The light through the school windows. Sitting in class.
The certain angle you could hold your watch face at to see, in the reflection on the dial, the people sitting behind you.
All secret like. They never knew.
The light infusing the mottled tin roof as you fill a bin liner bag with water above your best friend’s gardening shop.
The old wooden til draw that you open to take money for snacks at the deli next door.
I think these 2 dollar coins are new!
​
The bin bag now full.
Release to the ground.
No one injured. None wetted.
A thrill even so.
​
Snacks!
The light of the school disco.
Revolving and gyrating at the same speed as your young emotions.
Supersonic.
The intensity of the world that was coming into your understanding.
The instrument of you, growing and changing.
Perceiving slightly more each day.
Feeling. Feeling.
Girls are now a thing that you notice.
Hello. But not really. Who would be that bold.
That will take a decade, and fade.
So many years later now.
​
The faded orange of the streetlight as you sit in your car.
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And she kisses you! She kisses you.
Your first kiss. And she kisses you.
WhaT! wOw.. never a more buoyant feeling have you felt. Not yet.
That poor car trying to drive you home with its wheels off of the ground.
A blur of lights all congealing into a streak of no importance.
Time bending away from itself and continuing for no reason.
​
She kissed you!
The light eking out the side of the photo-scanner as you digitise times within your family tree that you'll never understand.
The poses.
The hair.
The battles.
The world they knew, those who make up the parts of you.
Sledding along unspecified mountains behind huskies wearing sunglasses cooler than those now available.
Sitting near the car for a picnic.
These pictures show so much.
These pictures show so little.
​
What was happening in their minds?
What were they scared of, worried about, wishing they did not know?
These photos, then as now, hide what is really going on.
They are triggers to things we want to remember.
How about the other half of us?
The things we wish to forget.
In forgetting and not sharing we all partake in the lie of us.
The lie of our time, and our times.
​
It has always been such.
Light shines on, yet we cast dark.
Dark on regions that would help another.
Another. And another.
We are stumbling around trying to understand our own existence while we lie, and erase our stories which could have helped.
Could have helped. Could have.
This glossy sheen we shoot for.
Whose outcome is this?
Why do we mangle our lived experience into boxes that it doesn't understand?
Boxes that don't help one another.
Here's to the light that will fall on the parts of your life that you have not yet lived.
The parts you can not possibly expect.
And will not understand.
The light to teach.
The light to learn.
The light to take away.
Light up your dark and let me see it.
​
Use the light that is coming.
​
I’ll try to do the same.
​
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