The I

Time after time I imbibe my fine libations

(prescribed). I try to find ways to tie my mind 

to this tiresome task, reminding my wild self 

my life depends on it, and why I desire

this life to unwind slowly, not lightly fly

too fast into nothingness. To stay a while yet,

to fight to be I. ‘I am the light!’ I cry.

And my mind, even on the slightest shift,

the tiniest tangent, never mind one so mighty,

replies by trying to define the why of this cry:

why I, so minute, so minor, aspire to be light,

in fact to be THE light. The sun in the sky?

Dare I fly so high? What lies behind this

quiet pining to become in time a kind of fire?

I shy away from further enquiries, liking

questions better than replies which might

or might not provide bona fide answers

to guide my soul in the right direction. 

Night falls – lightly, silently, but timely,

defining the (rightly) finite kind of this

fine exploration or wild speculation or

benign diversion … now silence is mine.

Written to my own prompt for Friday Writings #166 at Poets and Storytellers United, in which I invite people to choose one letter/sound and see what happens when they concentrate on that in a piece of writing. (I think a lot of nonsense has happened in this case!)