Water was her favourite companion; they never seemed to tire of playing and dancing together.

Envious, i sought my own fluidity. Heedless that one day i, too, would evaporate.

Some attempted to calculate light in various ways. Did they not know, in their heart of hearts, that she was immeasurable?

She knew no before.

Sometimes the light
can only be
found in darkness.

All was still,
except for the curtains
which breathe with the light.

Even the darkness
has a sheen.

The light didn't need to reveal
anything other than itself.

"I am never lost," she asserted.
While we, on the other hand, can never find ourselves
— not even in the light.

She is relentless.

Though i don't like to think that our relationship is so one-sided, i have to admit that it is always she who comes to me.

She shone,
even in oblivion.

Her generosity was simply boundless — she would share, without restraint, every single thing that she came into contact with.

Far too often we confuse existing with being perceived.

Stepping outside one December afternoon i was surprised at how early it had gotten dark. "I prefer it," the light confessed. "The less distracted you are by what you see, the more quality time we get to spend together." Pausing on the front porch i had to admit it was true:  i lost sight of her far too easily just by seeing.

Ambient,
like us.

While driving down the highway i glanced at the odometer and muttered something about how far i still had to go. The light playfully glinted on the windshield. "I am always here," she teased, "in this nowhere where."

The most difficult thing to accept?  Her perfection.

Sometimes it would only take a glimmer...

"Though i am both seer and seen, i see nothing."
She paused before adding, "And you?... You are no different."

Yet i couldn't help but wonder if, being left with nothing, would i now see any the more clearly?

One night, upon seeing that i could barely keep my eyes open any longer, she, quite matter-of-factly: "I never weary."

One morning, while i was watching the sun rise, the light turned and said, "I even illuminate the sun, yet none illumine me."

"I am here," she said, trying to console me. "Always here."

Wherever that might be.

"I have no enemies," said the light.

Sometimes i wish she did.

We helpless as the light.

"You often refer to 'your life' when it is neither your's nor life, but rather me alone."

At times like these her narcissism appeared to have no bounds, but what if she was merely stating the facts?

The light revealed the true depth of our frailty 

simply by trembling unnoticed.

I avoided celebrating my birthday, which only met with her approval. "There's no use in blowing out any candles," she said, "you can't extinguish me anyway."

The light had her tender moments too. Overhearing that a friend was devastated by a personal loss, she gently whispered, "Just try to remember that I am reflected in your tears as well."

"I know myself through you," she confessed.

Seemingly she was untroubled by the consequences.

It was easy to confuse her with the silence, but she did not sing.

Mornings too, she tended to intrude.

Bent over the sink splashing my face with cold water, i glanced at myself in the mirror.

She, with just a hint of vanity: "Though i may be reflected i have no reflection."

"You seem to think that i only am where i shine, yet i shine brightest where i am not."

Unable to sleep, i lay in the dark staring out the window waiting for the first light of dawn to appear. Seeing me there, she couldn't help herself, "'First light'," she quipped. "As if there ever was or ever will be any other but me."

Walking down the hallway I noticed light streaming from under a door. In my persistent quest for origins i turned the knob and quietly entered, only to discover that the room was utterly empty.

Such was her way: to beckon and abandon.

One day, we passed a sign on which was written: "Divine Mercy".

"'Divine'?!?" she scoffed. "As long as you think in such crude terms any heaven will be your hell. Where is the mercy in that?"

Disaster struck, but not for her—she always remained as placid as could be.

Seeing a pool of light i was never sure if it was an invitation to bathe, frolic or drown.

"If you listen closely enough," she assured me, "you will discover that I am in all that you hear as well."

Sadly, i am as deaf as i am blind.

"Too often you mistake my radiance for me," she admonished, unable to hide her disappointment. "Are others nothing more than their breath to you?"

I was left with the impression that she would remain an iconoclast long after the last saint had fallen.

"You do not see — i reveal."

Yet apparently she is her sole revelation.

"Like your shadow, one day i will overwhelm you."

Such were the promises she made.

One night, having already slipped under the sheets and turned out my lamp, i heard her voice whispering in the dark: "Perhaps it is in sleep when you are closest to me."

I rolled over on my side and went to shut my eyes, but i was no longer able to tell if they were closed or open.

Seeing me pondering some old photographs, she muttered seemingly to herself, "Fools... Thinking they could ever capture me."

Later, after she had departed, in the vain hope of proving her wrong, i returned to see if there might be but one photo that could illuminate the darkness.

I sat there fumbling through them for hours, unable to find even a single shadow.

Somewhat too easily one could find oneself resentful of her absences; to which she gently replied, "You know, i watch you stumble about in the dark too."

Comforting to know, but one still has to contend with the inevitable bruises.

She has her humble side too,
for even the light bows
to the pebbles and their silence.

"You think you see things, worlds, universes...
whereas, in reality, you only see their denial of me."

She was not at all dismayed though,
for their rejection had become her glory.

the light
breaking

Other times i notice her tucked quietly in a corner.
Then even my glance seems to disturb her.

Some days it seemed that the light would ravish itself.

An insect had flown into a lamp and was hurling itself against the bright bulb. Its folly drawing a wry smile.

"Don't be so smug," I heard the light admonish. "You, yourself, are similarly dazzled by your own ignorance."

I turned off the lamp and sat there, listening to myself flap vainly against the dark.

No matter how slight, she could never be seen from a distance.

Though i liked to think that we had become intimately familiar, occasionally she would just watch as i sank into what seemed to be an inevitable gloom.

"It is not despair which weighs you down and has become your burden," she once said, "for i illuminate it too."

Thus, she would state the obvious; leaving one to grope blindly toward the sound of her voice.

One day while looking together out the window, at the rain,
she turned to explain: "It is not that the clouds obstruct me.
No, not at all. Only that occasionally even I get distracted."

"Fleeting?!?!" She, incredulous.
"It appears that you have mistaken
your life for mine."

another light
seeking
another sky

a single ray of light
murmuring, "not here...
not here... i am
the source."

“You can only provide the circumstances,” explained the light.
“I decide when I will reveal myself.”
Though, of course, she is never hidden.
Still, that is the game we play.

might not shadows be
the mysterious
grace hidden in light?

for the light is to be shared
together with its shadows

to let
let the light