Saba Razvi

I couldn’t sleep, last night because the birds in the chimney would not stop their effervescence of screeching song. And now, I keep turning to every darkness in search of solace, in closets and bathtubs, in the hallway in the middle of the house beyond the reach of hurricane winds, under the bed, in the panic room of my mind. Still, I cannot sleep. Pages open and unfurl, pages about shadow and stone, about the bones we carry within us when we walk our dead selves in the shadow of our living. Dear, Nox, where are you? With you are the constellations of the ancients, the bear and the snake, the scales of power or justice, the serpent or its bearer or the little bear that calls the comet, the ice and fire of man not yet man, trailing its silver through the ghostly song of the colored lights over black stone beaches, the skittering chimes of the starlight skimming waterfalls waiting for snow, and the song of my somnolence slips into a darkness elusive as the sun’s bright face fills our gardens, as resilient as the shadows darkening against the glare of certainty.