luminescence

I am walking in the dark.

It is the cold that strikes me first,
attacking with an infinitesimal army of
minute and evidently angry daggers,
punishing my fingertips for their audacity in sensing.
It is painful, and I wonder if the Cold is jealous.

I shiver, and I do not know if it is cold or fear,
or if the two are different.
I fear coldness.

I believe I may be lost.
I began walking some time ago,
and I'm nowhere I'd imagined I'd be. 

And yet:
there is the unmistakable sensation that I am
just precisely and exactly
where I should be.
Shiver.

A mile or two away,
four million people celebrate light,
a beautiful occasion.

I think of light,
I feel light,
and for a moment,
the daggers in my fingertips cease,
or they cease to disturb me.

I pass a hospital, where a crooked sign requests silence.
I wonder why.
Are the ill less able to bear the endless noise than the rest of us?
And then: is it an illness to desire to escape it?
For the moment, the world honors the humble entreaty.
I nod my respects and walk on.

I come to a cemetery, a church, then a children's school,
and life seems fragile.
I shiver again.

It is dark.
It is cold.
For a moment, I feel alone.

Then a light, its origin unidentifiable,
but further from everything than I,
emerges from the darkness.
It shines down and I am able to see:
a tall, graceful person at my side,
tenderly watching over my shoulder.
She emanates surety and strength, and I feel safe.

She is my shadow.

One hundred meters down the road,
a man appears from around the corner.
He approaches me.
"You got a light?"
he asks, digging a cigarette from his pocket.

I smile.  Yeah, I got a light.