Reading

Reading, I sit in the darkish
The light behind me, illuminating dirty black poorly photocopied
Old sad pages
That like macabre twisted farce make me laugh
I hate that I am laughing

Reading, dipped in chocolate information
The light above me, glowing around my chapped fingers
Shaking leaf, am I
A little bit more understanding today than yesterday
I ache that laughing is stilled

Reading, I am in heaven’s palm
The light around me, dim but present, barely touchable –
My cavernous heart
Is weeping gently and longing for God to explain
Why it is not time to laugh yet

Reading, I stop reading
The light from within me glows sundown red-orange-pink
Breaks our horizon, like sunsets, we cannot touch
We can only saturate from a far, far place
What would be lost if too close

My will settles for too far
My soul pines for too close
And I pick up pages
And begin to read again.