Veni
Light surrounds the tunnel
Of every future yet.
Darkness fossilizes
What I would soon forget.
A child I would dip my hands
And bathe in lukewarm light
Learning
Growing
Playing, failing
I start to chess my might.
In accolades and glass facades
I rowed the kayak on
The tub
It stretched on bigger
Room for one
How’ve I become
So entrenched in success myths?
As I move into the light
it flashes for a while
Achievement only satiates
While still you bask in smiles.
Then the darkness eats the wick
Life’s magnified vignettes
I sit alone
In night I sit
A kayak, me, and yet
The deepest void still I must paddle
Remembering the light
That waits at every tunnel,
Stays to greet Miss Night.
Still someday I will be a child
Again bathe in the shores
Of future light
Arrived and bright
A symphony of Doors.
Doors open to new tunnels
With different colored lights
Green for love and summertime
Blue for death and sight.
Opening they shudder
Stagnant till the dawn
Cautiously I enter
Silence turns to song.
I see, I paddle,
Strain the stars
Kneeling, I peer down.
This tunnel, red with suffering
Now red with love and crown.
3/13/23-- day of composition
