MYSTERY LIGHT

 

Sometimes, when I'm in an old building --
marble floors and dark wood smelling of history --
I can't help but press one of the light switches
on the wall, those ancient metal buttons
blackened by the touch of countless fingers,
curious to see if they are still functional.
I did the same as a kid, in church basements
and schools, houses with unfinished attics,
half-expecting someone to storm through the door,
demanding to know who flipped the switch,
the one that controlled the whole neighborhood.
We certainly lived in enough places with wiring
from the turn of the century, lights flickering,
unsure if they wanted to work or not;
some you'd have to flip three times, rapidly,
to wake, or press with just the right force.
Not surprisingly, more than one of those houses
burned to the ground after we had left.
These days -- so many years turned to shadow
in my periphery -- I can't help but wonder,
against my own reason, if I'm turning on the light
in some distant room of the past, my brother
blowing ribbons of cigarette smoke, balanced on
the narrow window ledge, my older sister
curling her hair for a date, telling another corny joke.
There are rooms I would not want to enter --
some known, some forever closed -- but I'd take
my chances to see those faces lit up again.

THE LOST CITY

 

We pondered the popular myths of our childhood,

large and small, the blurred and grainy image

of Bigfoot walking through the woods,

so alone that we felt more sympathy than fear;

considered whether to spend our weekly allowance

on those X-ray glasses or sea monkeys

advertised in the backs of our comic books,

those other worlds of myth and muscle,

where humanity, which had been so foolish,

was always saved at the last possible moment.

We wondered, too, where all those planes

and ships had vanished, their signals lost forever,

while attempting to cross the Bermuda Triangle.

Wondered how many miles into the ocean

the lost city of Atlantis -- which we knew to be

true -- could be, and if one of us ever traveled there

in this lifetime without the other, how we might

send word back to the bright world above.

It's the way I speak to you now, brother,

through the weight and distance of all these years,

your reply moving slowly through the waves

while I wonder at the beauty of that city,

sparks of ancient light flashing against its glass,

a story, like you, I am not willing to let go.