The timelessness of night
before the sky starts to lighten,
when I am up
and everything else is still
(not even the mockingbirds
are awake);
I can sometimes feel
the earth give a little push
as it strains to cross
from dark to light--
the path it rides
is so grooved and worn.
Sooner or later
the rut will be too deep,
the earth will not be able
to get itself out,
and we will have
4am forever.
I see the pinprick-sized light
from every street lamp burning,
yellow, or white, or blue-tinged lights,
lining up to form lines that connect to lines that
line up to form boxes and triangles that form
nets flung out across towns and cities
to hold something down,
to keep something from getting away.
It occurs to me that from up here,
I should be able to see
the energy of millions of people thinking.
It should look like a phosphorescent glow
imbuing everything,
lambent over the landscape.
Inner LA should glow white and blue hot,
the San Fernando Valley yellow and orange,
Palm Springs a cool, ruddy red-
but somehow, all the energy from
all the wild dreams and nightmares,
all the studying and TV watching,
is invisible from up here;
maybe it's sucked towards the lights like moths
to false moons, caught by the far-flung nets of street lights,
transformed into humdrum light by hidden machinery.
My head against the cool window,
I hold my hand up to block out the reading lights
and watch the illuminated cobwebs stretch across everything,
and wonder who will sweep everything clean.