Light falling into light, the way it does in the summertime, across an inner tube, black, valve sticking out, resting in the sandy soil of a campsite by the old trailer our father built.
Light falling into light, the way it does in the wintertime, when the house is full and breathes and sighs with sleepers on the upper floors, when I alone am there to see it, falling in neat squares through the unshaded windows, chessboard of light spread across floorboards that soon will creak with the footsteps of our father coming down to make the coffee.
Light falling into night one autumn.
Light fallen into the night that had fallen over the city
and the neighborhood
and the hospital room where we wished for light that wasn’t sound
the neon buzz we had to make do with, now
in the time long past the time the light we loved had ceased its falling
in the forest that rose when I pressed his hand,
trees with trunks wide enough to embrace centuries,
trees that had stood in virile middle age an age before we were at all,
trees that will breathe not only air but also light long after we both have fallen
like leaves, into the soil that feeds them.
Come with me, please, now, to the edge of this forest that you are walking into.
I will not pull you anywhere, I promise. I’ve laid that down now; only let me lie down here, with you here at the edge of where you are going,
Lie down in the warn soil under the trees that love us.
Feel, one last time, light falling
and falling
into light.
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