A Part of the Night

I walk to my balcony

The edge of the parking garage

Outside my door

Of the apartment building,

I own the space,

On borrowed time,

I get to my spot

And scan the landscape.

An air so pleasant as this

Cool and sitting on the nose

It's only earned after

surviving a night of wind

Thrashing and banging,

Much ado of not much,

on the windows and screens.

The tree line my eyes approach

Dark black

Full of life

Hidden by the night

Hidden by choice

In hole or in nest

A wall of black

But quickly thru which

A sparkling set of lights

Breaks the darkness,

Festive hold overs, surely,

From the late year

Windows glowing,

Obscured by the thrush

Not square

Squiggly, like a Van Gogh doorway

I pan to the left, the wide open loop of land

Skyscraper-less

Beset by tall trees on the outskirts

Near a mile round, I reckon

Cars moving along the tiny highway

Getting smaller and smaller

In my view as they go

Cars on the highway

Gaining size, bigger and bigger

As they come

These comings and goings

Lights in the night

Who am I to them?

But a speck with a hat

In a coat on a phone

Leaning on the ledge

Of an oblong concrete box,

Brutalist in make

Above a bit of it all

A part of the night.