Notes About The Poem
People are temporary observers of a reality that is far older, grander, and more complex than our grids, compasses, or categories can capture.
Grid of a Thousand Lights
Upon the bruised, slate-blue of the mountain peak,
Where shadows lengthen and the cold winds speak,
A heavy silence gripped the craggy stone,
Save for the secrets told to night alone.
A sudden, wet fog began to drape
The summit’s crest—a blunt and shifting shape—
Blotting out a third of all the height
In smoky veils of gray, uncertain light.
And there, inside that dense, obscured expanse,
I caught the twitching of a phantom dance.
From deep within the mountain's ancient seams,
Defying logic and the weight of dreams,
Strange, tiny sparks of life began to rise—
Anomalies before my waking eyes.
Shot violently from fissures in the rock,
They pierced the evening, an electric shock.
Viewed from a distance, the phenomenon
Looked like a plastic toy from days long gone—
A bubble gun, relentless in its play,
Spewing its spheres into the dying day.
At breathless, dizzying speeds they took to flight
From scattered vents across the mountain's height,
Up through the slopes, from every rugged tear,
Spitting their mysteries into the air.
Once airborne in the cold, unyielding space,
They swarmed and hovered, freezing in their place.
A gathering of strange, metallic throngs,
To which no earthly category belongs.
More aberrations shot out from below,
Locking into the grid, a silent show,
Until a thousand small, suspended lights
Ignited the approaching winter nights.
They hung static in the heavy air,
A constellation birthed of cold despair—
Or maybe wonder—flickering afar
Like lightning bugs we captured in a jar.
I mind the summers of my childhood years,
The sweating glass, the laughter, and the cheers,
When glowing beetles mapped the evening shade,
A brief, warm pulse before the day would fade.
But these were not the insects of the plains;
No amber blood was pulsing in their veins.
By matching pairs, they broke the grand design,
Snapping their anchors from the glowing line.
They zipped away, a sudden, blinding streak,
Leaving only the fog upon the peak—
To every compass point they scattered, gone
To chase the stars or race the coming dawn.
They vanished out of sight—a sudden blink,
Far faster than a human mind can think,
Leaving the ridge-line lonely, still, and stark,
Abandoning the summit to the dark.
I watch the empty sky and search the air,
Wondering what quiet gulfs produced them there—
Whether they hide within our atmosphere,
Or drift from worlds a lifetime far from here.
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