It seems permanent, this ridiculous change,
days cut short by the sun’s early setting.
Same colors, same bombast, but too soon
to accomplish all that requires daylight,
all that daylight requires.
Sorting thru closets, dusting cobwebs
requires a just-so slant of illumination to
intercept, wiping windows whose smudges
are disguised by nighttime’s pledge of
sanctity and chaste regret.
There aren’t enough stars in the sky
to number all I want to do, and yet now
they’re starting their shift, in order to
tease me, me stumbling by a bulb’s dim light,
dragging a hand blindly across a rug
in the utter darkness that falls when
one switch is off, before the other
can be found.
Cheryl A. Rice
Kingston, NY