I’ll Ill Illuminate
Up above there is this one lone window
and through it flows
this single shaft of light.
That window…
That small square up there…
It is absolutely stationary.
I do not think it will ever move.
It is one of the absolutes of the known universe.
The Earth moves, and with it,
the Moon.
The Sun?... Yes,
it moves, but that window?
It is the one thing stationary.
Everything…
Everything else is relative to that
four-sided construct of masonry.

In a way, I wish
I could be that singular;
that un-moving.
But here…
Down in the darkness below… I
am not alone.
There are others here.
Others I care not to know.
They lurk in the dimness of the shadows and
though I rarely see them,
I am forever aware of their presence in that
their incessant skittering never stops.
I suppose it’s a good thing they
make all that noise.
I might have difficulty staying awake otherwise.

And I need to stay awake,
for how else would I continue to move?
Move? Oh yes.
I move.
Just ever so.
Ever so perceptively so.
Looking at me
sitting there on this long wooden bench,
you might think such density…
Such mass…
Such gravity as
totally incapable of
shifting in the slightest.
But I move.
I move relative to the window
and the immense glowing object
so far beyond it.

Indeed, that Sun moves, and as it does,
it causes this solitary beam of light to
trace along the wall and just here,
this length of bench beneath me.
And as it so moves…
so do I.
I, in this square of light,
forever moving…
just so.
They, skittering away in the darkness...
They are
a part of nothingness.
And by their association,
they are nothing.

I, on the other hand,
am in league with a higher thing.
I?
I have that window to define me.
They in the darkness…
They beyond this stage of light…
They… They covet my rectangle of radiance!
They crave my four-sided enlightenment, but
they shall not have it!

I…!
I dominate this sunbeam!
I, master of all relative illumination…
must not fall asleep.
Must last until this thing called
dusk.
Must persevere until
that window,
just there,
turns black
and I collapse
into the horrific realm of
deep dark
madness.

©05 Jack Hubbell