Soapbox

Power Failure

Why is it that at 2 o'clock in the morning I can walk through the house
sure-footed in the dark
with no need or impulse to turn on the lights
but at 9 PM on this July evening
at each threshold my hand twitches, frustrated and confused,
toward the wall switch?
Damn.

Rooms seem darker when you know the lights don't work.
An evening house with no power feels empty,
deserted by TV, radio and microwave,
books and crossword puzzles now mysteries unsolveable
since whatever caused this power failure hours ago.

You never realize how much noise the refrigerator, air conditioner
and water heater make until they all stop breathing all at once.
Like a marionette with its strings cut, the house is motionless,
uncirculated air already feeling musty and close.
It feels grief-stricken,
populated by ghosts of so many things once flashing or humming,
now dead.

The only life or light that remains is outside
so I open the door and settle on the front stoop.
Compared to the tomb I left indoors
the air outside is fresh and pulsing with power.
There is a thick greenish glow to the twilght
as if the grass and trees, envigorated by the recent rain
are glowing with chlorophyll delight.
All the houses up and down the street are dark and sleeping,
but the lawns and pavement around them dance with lightning bugs
and glimmer from occasional distant lightning.
The evening is raucus with the ancient lovesongs of crickets and cicadas
and is the rustle of wet leaves in the wind always that loud?

Is it just the approaching night
or the lack of electric competition
that sends the fireflies into such a frenzy,
bouncing off bushes and mailbox,
flashing in double-time?
The absence of a porchlight has not discouraged the mosquitoes either
so as the last glow fades over the rooftops
I go back inside.
I brush my teeth in the dark, and
reminding myself not to reach for the wall switch as I pass,
go to my room, open the window,
sit on the edge of my bed and swing my legs
uncertain what do to next.

We are prisoners of so much conveniences.
bound tightly with all our power cords.
Our great-grandparents were not so encumbered by a lack of canned daylight.
They had gas or oil lamps and simple tasks to do by their dim glow
but mostly, they were prepared to go to sleep when the world got dark
and rise with the returning sun.

We, of the advanced modern age struggle to navigate by the glow
of our rapidly de-poweing cell phones,
stare at our computers and blenders as if they have betrayed us
and cannot think of anything to do that does not
need to light up or speak or move by itself.

Finally I lay back and close my eyes, resign myself to darkness
and the sound of my breathing
when, with a loud click and then a rush 
the power is restored.
In relief- and chagrin
I leap from my bed, hands up to shield my eyes,
and hurry to shut off all the shining, whirring and shouting things in my house
wonder why I'd had so many things turned on at the same time anyway.
I find myself returning the house to the darkness
that so frustrated me a minute before,
consider watching TV for a while
but instead I lay down again,
look out the window and
listen to myself and trees, breathing together
while the crickets sing.