Light #1

Light #1

I was thinking the other day about travelling to new places, and how the colour and quality of light is always different, and how we are always changed, even slightly, by absorbing these new frequencies. So of course I wrote a poem...

Another City's Light

I sit on the verge in the sunburnt light.

Nearby, a man coaxes music from an old guitar.

On the street, two boys kick a football

between the goalposts of a tourist's legs.

The city smells of salt water, car exhaust,

the shy perfume of sand.

I am a stranger here, and sometimes I think

pilgrimage, not citizenship, is man's rightful state.

I watch the sun drop into sea

like an overripe persimmon.

And when it's too dark to read the street signs,

I trace the cry of fruit bats back to my apartment

but do not flip the switch -

dark is not light's absence, but its breath.

And after all day in the city's glare,

I just need to breathe. 

Long, luminous breaths.

Untitled

(Pilgrimage)