Light: A poem

What are you currently illuminating?

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

Kaleidoscopes shrine brightest
in the dark. I know a guy who bought

his old dog bright red balls
so she could find them in the grass.

I didn't have the heart to tell him
dogs can only see in blue and yellow.

There's a company that sells LED Christmas
lights that look like the old-timey bulbs, 

but without the heat of incandescents.
Like Fitzgerald’s Gatsby,

we're always looking for a past
that doesn't burn.

They say you should go toward
the light when you die. I tried

to tell my mom that while she lay dying,
but that just made tears roll down her cheek.

Perhaps it's a sin to reveal that we
are all mortal. We'd rather not know.

The body wants complete darkness
while sleeping. Perhaps that's why

we find Plato's cave so comforting.
The memories are there—we just 

choose to bury them, like a personal
graveyard in our minds.

We’ll save a seat for the ghosts.