NIGHT SCENES

"Time of Reflection"

"Keep me safe until I can find my way home." I awoke with these words stinging in my head, over and again. I wanted to reach out and touch them as though they were a talisman of white magic and would by my caress, silently disappear.

I know where I am; I am at home, cocooned in my own wool fleece warmed mattress, a low healing current is running through the upper throw of nylon that blankets my ever-chilled body.

I am safe with the heavy doors bolted and the windows jammed with double brass locks. A blinking green and red light reminds me of the electronic alarm that aids the fragile and frightened.

Now I am saying the words, as a subtle mantra. "Keep me safe until I can find my way home." I arouse to a time of deep concentration, as only the night can allow.

Enlightenment comes as a shade of gray from the wall by my bed, reflected in the wavy silvered glass, framed in the antiquity of frozen mahogany, imprisoned are my eyes by stares of my own, mirrored by memories of times unrepentant.

"Safety" is not always a state of behavior and "Home" could be a figment of desire. So touched by God's formless hand, I long for the substance of His encompassing space that empties my vain dependencies but fills my life with His foundations, I am free but filled, No one can hurt me, I belong.

The unwanted words linger in rhythm with the pulse of the furnace, but only as a closing refrain, I turn, and I sleep in the silence, safe and at home.