Reflecting Light
It could be any night,
but probably one of the longer ones.
It would be any road,
the road stretching a long way behind me.
It should be cold with the snow
but it's too warm with the heater.
So I'd have the window down a little,
wasteful and wistful.
The lamposts would have been calm by now.
The snow could all have fallen.
And I might be broken.
It wouldn't have been very long ago
-- or probably not too far in the future.
And the air has that tight, pressured taste
-- wet in your mouth, like when you bite your tongue.
My hand wont be on the gearshift.
I wont even hear the radio.
And all that night,
I wouldn't have thought of you once.
But around that last turn,
I will have whispered something
in a small, shaky voice.
It could be something you once said.
Or it could be from a book we both liked.
But it will have been quick,
like I'm running out of breath.
And on that turn, I'll finally think of you.
-- of you in the car, from the other seat,
you wouldn't have told me to close the window.
But I could tell things will have grown cold.
We could be here or somewhere else.
And it shouldn't be so bright out.
But I'll be remembering you like you were back then
-- back on a different drive,
down a different road,
in a different car,
on the same
night.
You would also have said something
about the night.
It wont have been the smell or the air,
but I might not remember it all.
I know it would have started with the light.
You might have told me something bright
and intelligent
or silly.
It could have been the exact speed of the light,
or the distance it crosses,
or the smell.
But before that,
I might have brought up how bright it is tonight.
How clear the sky would have been.
And how heavy the air feels.
Although heavy air would have been less dense, actually.
And the bright night might have just been light reflecting
off the snow on the hills
which could only reflect the moonlight
which could only reflect the sun.
And it would have been in that instant,
or closely following heretofore,
that I coud have lost contol,
the car swerving,
because I had never seen the light.
But my mind might only handle so much
reeling,
and jarring,
and seeing the whole universe at once.
Because you shouldn't tell me with a smile,
how the light is only photons
which wouldn't be a particle or a wave
since anything with mass traveling that fast into my eyes
should rip through my retina like a semi through this car.
Or that you couldn't catch up with the light
because if you could chase behind it at its speed,
like an ambulance to the scene of an accident,
you would still see it traveling ahead of you
at the speed of light.
And I would have been lost in too much thought.
I would have been pained by too little breathing.
And you would have kept talking
without looking at the road.
-- saying that those physical pieces of light,
the very miniscule photon packets of energy,
would have started at the sun
and traveled to the moon in eight minutes.
And you might point out your window to the bright full moon,
telling me how that same piece of energy
would have bounced off the moon
refracting in our atmosphere
in moments
towards those hills.
And you might have pointed through the windshield
to the white hills several miles in front of us.
And that same piece of energy
would have bounced off the hills
refracting through the windshield
to the back of my retina.
And you probably would have told me,
while pointing at my face
that I have a little piece
of the sun in my eye.
But maybe you wont have noticed
that my eyes would have been closed,
my mind reeling,
my tears falling,
the car sliding.
And maybe you had never seen it coming.
But I would be reminded of this on that last turn
of that long road, when the snow had all fallen,
when the night is too bright again
and the light is reflecting
into my eyes
from the oncoming traffic.
And I would imagine you telling me
how the energy in your synapses
jumping between neurons
before slowing to a halt,
in your clouded and reeling mind
is the same energy
as the light in my eyes
coming from the stars
but in a different form.
You would have told me how before we die,
that energy or light
jumping across synapses
and remembering connections
through repeated thoughts
of the people we love,
might be reflections of the past
refracted through our own filters
or recalling our shared future
as a memory's form of time travel
at the speed of light.
Or I might softly wonder, as if I were telling you,
how the light in my mind, before I die,
might be the physical interaction of the material world,
with the spiritual realm.
And if there is an energy in my mind,
that reflects my life,
refracted by my memories,
then that light would be my soul.
But before my soul dies
on the side of the road,
I would remember how your light had gone out
on the side of a road
with my eyes closed,
my mind reeling,
my tears falling,
and my regret reflected
at the slowing speed of light.
Posted by heydomsar
2006-03-06
go back | random brainstorm | go forth
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