The Light.

Old and living alone,

I go to bed early,

which makes it all even worse;

for last night I went on up,

went absentmindedly off to bed,

and left the light on in the living-room,

left it to burn away there all night,

uselessly illuminating an empty room.

What a greeting first thing in the morning,

faced with all that damning effulgence,

the room overflowing with it,

overwhelming me as I opened the door.

I very promptly moved to switch it off,

to extinguish the glaring evidence,

as if the damage was not already done,

as if I did not know the carelessness

of which I was so plainly guilty.

How strange it must have felt there,

but with no-one there to feel it,

during all those long bright silent hours,

and not an object allowed its rest:

the two armchairs and their matching sofa,

the family photographs in their frames,

the fireplace and the small table,

all needlessly kept at attention.

Of course, while my one bulb blazed within,

outside, there beyond the curtains,

and throughout the benighted town,

the streetlamps, thousands of them,

shone away merrily on high,

shone on after midnight and into the small hours,

when the streets are deserted and still

and there is rarely a footstep heard.

Tell me. I ask you. In all fairness,

what is my one slip to all that nightly show?

Yes. I forgive myself. Father, shut up!