Comfort

I find comfort in the healing,

regenerative powers

of the dark.

Darkness is a comfort,

recovering from a migraine,

hissing at the sunshine

like a bad-tempered vampire,

hiding in the darkest corner

of the living room,

shades drawn to make it

as crypt-like as possible--

enfolded in protective shadow,

light cannot stab through my eyes like shards

And my brain slowly recovers its equilibrium.

Or, on a summer night,

battling insomnia,

I walk the shadowed alleyways of my block,

watching the fireflies rise up

out of the grassy ditches

into the reaching oaks, like tiny

blinking galaxies mirroring the stars above,

and the pain of sleeplessness is lost

in wonder.