Night settles a too-thick blanket over wearied Day,
stretched long and thin, past its limit.
Its skin dirt-brown, cracked-dry, will not moisten
or renew by morning.
Day is parched. Alert and restless under the weight of Night,
crickets and breezes drown out the quiet of the hillside,
the silence of an unpeopled city. What remains is the clanging
of thought. Day will get no will sleep.
Night tries to comfort Day, sends shushes of birds mocking the crickets,
engine whirls of the few lone trucks making their way out of the tunnels,
even the reassurance of dogs barking. Day rolls to its side, ignores Night,
shuts its eyes tight against the grays and blacks, the shiny bright lights
throughout the valley, Moon and its laughable smallness.
Day, having gone for a meandering, time-filling walk earlier today, remembers
how the Victorian style hotel made Moon, still up while Day was out and about
traipsing the steep callejones – Why does Night let its ward keep any old schedule,
go where it wants? What will become of Moon with such a permissive guardian?
Anyway, Moon, not wanting to show its full face in the blazing blue of Day’s watch
was tiny in comparison with the hotel’s ornate cupula. Day recalls its momentary glee –
to feel greater than something.
Petty, Day knows. But endless hours awake under a black canopy
are to blame. If Day had its way, it would have kept going
found something more useful, a load of laundry, a grocery list
sorting photos in its phone gallery, scrolling for new posts
anything to avoid Night’s taunting, just-out-of-reach
cat-and-mouse tactics, lulling to the edge of somnolence,
the promise of dream’s oblivion, then igniting the adrenaline
surge: panic’s breakthrough.
Night is not for the weak of heart, the tired, the weary,
the scooped out and frightened, the isolated and tiny creatures
it has been sent to protect.
Day knows this. Knows it will fail again tomorrow if it does not surrender.
But surrender is not Day’s strong suit.
With a nod toward the inevitable, Day rolls to its back
takes a deep breath in, lets the air out
feels the places where ground supports its body
feels Night coming to rest again, like the first time
and gives its assent, releases the tension built up in its hours
starting with its feet, working up to its crown, wonders what it should try counting.
Sheep? Blessings? Other Days?