The Light of Glass – A Poem

I’m waling in a landscape

filled with glass. It glitters

like diamonds on the ground,

the sparkle from it like wishes

given form. They are blinding,

but still I look. While I gaze

into the light, I see a land

that I know well, see

a terrain that I’ve travelled.

It moves and shifts, the ground

never staying still for long,

the sky seeming to rush down

upon it like a turbulent sea.

“Don’t look too long upon that, now.”

A voice says. I look up and see a man,

his hair matted and dulled with soot,

smiling at me. He motions to the

glass upon the ground that holds

the familiar path, the one I know.

“It’s best not to dwell on where you’ve been. Only where you’re going.”

I look at him and try to

detect some sort of malice but

there is only kindness coming

from him. I motion towards the glass shards,

containing the ground that will not

remain in the same place.

It is a terrain that I know well.

“How do you know what is inside the light?”

He looks at me, his green eyes flashing

like two emeralds and holds his arms wide.

“I can tell from the way you are standing. You do not look like a happy man. Looking upon the light should fill you with joy, not despair.”

I walk closer to him and smell peppermint

and the scent of wild oranges.

“I’ve tried, I continue to try. But I trip, I fall, I get up again. I know the ground so well.”

“Ah!” He says. “But you get back up again.”

“Yes, so?”

He bends and picks up

a handful of the diamond sand.

“That is your own light shining through. Your will is strong. Leave this place now. It is for the lost. You belong somewhere else.”

I find myself nodding in agreement,

wondering how he could see

inside of me so deeply.

“Who are you?”

He let out a laugh that sounded

like joy released and smiled at me.

“Does it matter? Do not dwell on what has been and what was. You are not the man you were. Focus instead on your own light and moving forward.”

The light from the glass

began to increase so that

it was brighter than the sun.

“It’s so beautiful.”

He laughed again and motioned at me.

“That is not the light from the glass. That is the light coming from inside of you.”

I looked down at myself and saw

that there were several points

along my body that were

aflame with light. That light

poured out of me and shone

brighter than the sun.

I let the glass shards fall

with a tinkle and placed my hand

over the light coming form where

my heart was. It was warm and there

was a vibration coming from it

that was like its own music.

The light grew brighter still

until it was all I could see.

“Walk forward and keep walking. Shine bright and keep shining. That is all there is to it.”

Then there was only whiteness and

the gorgeous hum of light

that came from within me.