A night’s palette

To be among the night, twisted and confined to its fingers of darkly shadows and colorless palette, I am caught up in this web of imaginings. One, while on a roadtrip to the southwest and hiking into Death Valley, was a thought of an artist behind who paints me into a scene (some non corpreal being). The idea was wild and stuck. What came of it was this poem while at a hotel in Idaho.

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Do I awaken by happenstance
Or by bidding?
Between me and a night’s grand stage
Is no one –
I stand alone

There’s a fettered absence
Of sleepiness
And of time
Only shadowy curtains
Opening into forests and mountains
layered line over line

It is like an artist of dark moods
Painting in shades of grey and black
Who magically alludes
That color is but a few short hours
From bleeding onto a canvas
Too mute for most

It is like me
Perhaps is why I was awakened in the night
To be painted into place
By an artist
I can't see
Who moves the strings of me
Like a painter does a brush