The Lights of the City

The sun has set, and the lights of the city have come on.

Tom Waits sings on the radio as warm air streams in thru the windows of the car, swirling my hair into a tousled rage. I accelerate from the on-ramp into the swift southward flow of traffic.

The highway crosses the river. White lights on a boat dock on the southern shore shimmer in the river, rippled by the breeze. Headlights shine behind me, taillights in front. I turn my head to look back at the downtown I am leaving behind.

I turn and see the red and blue lights of the skyline and the glowing green postmodern tower climbing above it all. I see lines of white lights. And I imagine the glowing street lights on the bridges just around the bend further downstream. And people sitting on the benches. And straggling joggers on the trail. And herons and swans sleeping in the blackness, under the cypress trees or among the reeds and water iris.

I see and imagine this in a brief turn of my head, and as my eyes come back to the lane in front of me, out of the corner of my eye I catch the great orange moon climbing into the eastern sky, climbing out from behind the city, as wide as the buildings, climbing thru glowing wisps of orange-lit cloud.

The sun has set, and the lights of the city have come on.

11:08:28 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []