I have never walked this path alone
at this time of night. Midnight.
Exactly how it should be.
The uneven slabs of stone catching me off guard.
Squares of brick, red and gray and littered with autumn leaves.
Bike wheels glued to the Earth,
progressing with grace and ease
and hair flowing one strand at a time
in the breeze.
Buildings with staircases that lead
to towers of finite knowledge, but the top floor is
silent,
Save for the voices behind me, beyond
the jungle of bare trees and lawns of fallen death.
Fear death from above.
I will never understand why they talk
so loudly. No intonation, no change in pitch.
Only a deafening roar of a hundred voices
speaking out against the same Earth.
For they say that human nature lies outside the self.
There are columns that hold up the educated,
mad at work. The lights are not bright,
but it’s enough yellow-orange to understand
where you are situated in this world.
“Let us both take the obscure route, for we are both obscure.
But he says we’re all nice! All of us our nice!
He judges by the level of obscurity,
so it’s a good thing that we are both obscure.”
They wear the smallest shirts with the smallest sleeves and the smallest pants
and they witness the landscape before them.