In which Your Humble Blogger has one more rhyming poem to share before things take a strange turn toward a world less driven by form:
"Lights"
If you are out late on a walk
And suddenly the grey cement
No longer looks as pale as chalk
And shadows from the trees fall, bent
So that they touch the shadowed grass,
You might wish for headlights to pass
Across the way -- you're safe at last.
You might think of the fastened strings
Of colored stars -- no, they were just
Electric baubles, wind-rocked things
You saw five houses down. They must
Have been hanging since months before.
They shouldn't be there anymore.
So who are they still shining for?
They're left for you. It might seem wrong
To find out that you're more at ease
In packaged light that's shipped along
Stiff wires than light that slips past trees.
That incandescent glow you've known
Reminds you, though, you're not alone.
Christmas lights gleam, cars rest their chrome --
The lights tell you you're almost home.
* * *
I like this more for the form I came up with than for the language I used to fit the thought into the form. Written after a nighttime walk that took me past a house with its Christmas lights still up and glowing in April.
[Edit: Hmm, seems that Blogger's insta-formatting won't allow me to indent the last three lines of the first two stanzas and the last four of the third stanza, as they should be. Curse you, technology! *shakes angry fist*]
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