illumination's struggle

Summer has hidden its brilliant face.
The trees argue. Back and forth;
trying to decide what message to deliver, whether to tell me
t-shirt or jacket
Inside or out.

This morning, the fighting has stopped.
Most of the trees are silent.
Others, roll over lazily to peak open an eye and ignore my presence.
Regardless of their final conclusion,
I'm already wearing a sweater.

The day looks promising
and the morning is perfectly new.
By the time I drink my raspberry leaf tea, I may be in short sleeves
but for now I push the future out of my mind.

In the present, sunshine has creeped onto this page;
like a starved man in the desert, it drives fingernails into line,
trying to reach the the mirage that is book's end, ahead.
Suddenly the light stops, rests. Exhausted.

The page--halfway illuminated, half in shadow.

It's difficult to see such brilliance struggle.
I could move two feet over
and leave the page engulfed in light.
Yet I do not.

Illumination's struggle sounds like a good name for a religious text.
But these words are recreational, a different type of worship.
A striving.
A hope.

At times, a desperate clawing to day's end--
blessed because my eyes remain open.
damned because sometimes, with no apparent reason, no lack of sleep,
no sign of illness, I shut them.

Refuse to allow vision. Thought. Feeling.

And so I just float.
Away.
Fearing what I've already heard.
Dreading what I've never seen.