The Waking

Because the mysteries of light are unsolvable.
Because it rests on my eyelids like moths,
fluttering for dear life, scattering immunity
against the pulsing waves of sleep. I open
the curtain-eyelids of windows and there,
light plays like cats on distant sills. Birds
take flight because of its insistence
that they find food, some common psalm
of joy. The man-made fountains by the
malls wink in its reflections, refractions
like so many disc-plates threaded by children
at art class. Once light bounced off my plate
as I tilted it to catch the rainwater. A stray
ray, sudden as epiphany, swift as lightning
cast like an answered prayer from clouds.
Because my heart strains to lay a claim
on sleep, as moths do in the face of light.