in the silence of the night

“Silence is so accurate.” -Mark Rothko

without distraction

alone

in the silence of the night

we are ourselves

without anything but our uncanny

likeness

to the dead that have left us

whom we will soon join

(in a manner of speaking)

beneath the ground &

filled with worms

or

burnt to fine ash,

sitting in an urn somewhere or

spread over the land, the water

or if your reality is one of being

completely

alone,

then that ash may simply blow in the wind

with the rest of the day’s garbage---

how vain the day is

how much we pretend to matter in the

sunlight

where our physical imperfections sing tunes that

everyone seems to listen to

where our own blindness to life’s real priorities can be maxed out

by a slow driver in front of us

or the anxiety produced by just missing the subway train,

having to wait for another---

with the night comes none of this

for we know that so many have fallen asleep

exhausted,

their bodies demanding

replenishment in that ironic paradigm wherein

the retracting from actual life in real time into the

paralysis of sleep

allows for the building back up of the body &

the energy supply for that

busy insanity

delivered to each one of us

exclusively

as a result of the individual choices we make.