Nocturne

Under yellowed streetlights and the last vestiges of the afterglow
there is little thought,
when passing a stranger on the sidewalk,
of the niceties of the daytime:
a small smile, a soft hello,
perhaps a wave--

no... at night,
shadowed silhouettes slide silently past each other,
for when it is dark outside
the exploration is not of
the world external but
of the inner universe
of the isolated heart
of feelings which the sun shuns
and there, in the black solitude
lies a dark but unsubdued radiance,
a beauty unflaunted, and not dazzling,
the mystery of freedom,
and unmuted speculations
of truth:

Why can both light and darkness be either
warm and heavy or
cold and thin?
why can both the sun's glare
and a pitch-black room
obscure truth
and reveal it?
Are they true opposites, then,
or sides of a coin:
an actor's two faces?
Consider it
as you stroll down the sidewalk on a summer morning
and as you lay beneath the covers on a winter night

just wonder