Lessons

I remain aware of the single lightbulb

hanging behind me,

for…

Somewhere way back,

someone, I don’t remember his name,

had me sit and listen.

So silent it was.

Such was my introduction to what I thought a game,

a process remaining a compulsion

to play each night of every day.

Having never been told any rules or discerned

who or what was supposed to represent an outcome,

I’ve continued to work it again and again,

an effort to find the point.

I still hear that stillness,

that nothingness that I’ve waited so long

to find a reason for this incessant listening.

Even as I study my silhouette on the wall,

the shadow outline of my gravity worn body

slumped on a seat,

shadow-viewing the man I’ve been becoming for so long,

like a person waiting in a phone booth for the

out of service phone to ring.

Suddenly…

Like a deck of cards being shuffled,

I look back at the light bulb,

where a fluttering moth bides time,

its instinct for the light’s alluring persuasion

making its manic brain too wired to sleep…

like me.

Then…

Silence.

Might query become ponderance,

making the conundrum...

unanswerable,

even as every other night,

a peaceful state of mind takes over?