near-infrared
as the nights grow long
and the days grow short
where once i felt despair
i now feel delight
there is something special about
the darkness of the night
because darkness to the eye
is not the true absence of light
there is light beyond the visible
for as the sun sets
the moon and stars rise
and the eye adjusts to see
not in sharp color,
but in muted shades
of an inky darkness
and shadows cast in the pale
monochrome dreams,
of teal and green
snow white leaves,
falling from ashy trees
and pitch-black skies,
lit up by pinpricks of starlight
familiar in shape
different in color
clothes bleached white
eyes hollowed out
the unseen exposed
with the visible dimmed
a world of identical contents
lit with invisible light
how does one grasp
being able to see
the unseeable?
shades of red and pink so deep
that the eye can no longer
generate a readable signal
outside point-blank range
the energetic barrier in the retina
becomes a photonic abyss for man
but not for a photocathode
the near-infrared is a sea of starlight
and among the waves of
electrons and photons
i am but a traveler
and so I wander across the sea
of black-body radiation
navigating a phosphor world
to find my way home