Loss of Light

Loss of Light

The sky is overcast and somehow the more beautiful for it.  The resurgence of sun-lit landscapes gain the absolute clearest perspective when they can be approached on cloudy days.  It is not that we see anything new, rather we find that our own perceptions have been taken for granted.  What we saw before only turns out to be the notion of a feeling, the clarity of a thought, but never the light with which those things are illuminated.  This is true for the way we read books, listen to music, and try to figure out the tasks of our day, and this is also true of our innermost desires.  

The lake is deeper with the loss of light, the forest more silent; animals step with an approaching calm, and it is all too easy to forget that we must function with the rising of the sun.  The trees have gone from light yellow to dark red in the matter of a week, but not the light that perceives them; and it is with renewed interest that I take up the terrifying banalities of life.

 Douglas Thornton