lightness

in summer season, when soft was the sun.

snow fell, undated. light
each summer thronged the glass
...

perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
inside your head, and people in them acting...

rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
the sun-comprehending glass,
and beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

---Larkin.

At Putney station, old but busy. There's more than a hint of winter in the air tonight: hands in pockets, ice in the blood. For the first time the warm yellow lights in other people's houses look comforting, welcoming. Life returns to the interior. For the first time you want to look inside other people's windows, spy on the petty dramas that unfold. You, riddled with light, wonder how totally different lives can carry on so close and yet so oblivious to your own.

Tonight, wise mothers will tell their children not to stay out too late. The enfolding darkness and the bleak buildings have never looked so devoid of light, empty. Is it only us? Reality, whether shallow, dramatic or profound, is indoors. Living this veiled life, anything can be endured-even a cramped space-if there is light and warmth.

The sky is somehow mysteriously darker than it has ever been before-or ever will be. Suddenly, without warning, the station lights come on with a ping and a flicker and there is an audible sigh of relief. Light returns. Holds us. We measure our distance from one another by it; only our shadows criss-cross one another. The light in your eyes has grown old, become soft, sadder. Take a gentle step into this artificial light and smile. Remember summer.

But for a moment we're all sailors on the top deck. We're shipwrecked, you and me. The old man was right. Surround yourself. Keep it out. We strain our eyes, search and search in the dimming evening light. Is there a human soul out there in the silence, the sea?

I'm lost in my own thoughts for some reason and remain quiet for a long time. On the district line our train pulls into a station. I look across at another train that seems to be at a greater height than ours. Between its rusty wheels I see a shimmering arc of light. For a minute it appears as if there is another world beyond those lights and I'm nearly spirited away there. Then the train pulls away, revealing nothing but a simple and tired plastic white light. So, this is reality! Don't look too closely at it.