NIGHT FLIGHTS by Jennifer Wenn

 

Night Flights 

(With thanks to Emily Dickinson)

As the sun’s slipping past the horizon

Bestows slumber on day’s brightness

Unveiling night’s shadows and myriad scintillations,

So when consciousness fades,

Reason rests, liberating deeper and subtler currents.

By intuition, Emily writes,

Mightiest Things assert themselves,

And potent indeed are night’s perils and possibilities

When the soul takes flight on

Wings unshackled from logicality.

 

Base instinct, innate or long-ago induced,

Primitive and fear-based, sweeps and dives

Through dreamscapes harrowing and confusing,

A dread funhouse ride cacophonous,

Labyrinthine and exhausting.

 

Another course, Emily’s true intuition,

A calm, connected knowing

Like an infant gazing into their parent’s eyes,

Is easily swept away, but when flown proves

Quietly miraculous, a peaceful reaching out,

Soaring on starfire through infinities,

A treasured gift of stillness.

 

Wakefulness resuming, night flights

Left behind but the unconscious 

Mementos remain, some needing release,

Others to be embraced.

Potent indeed are night’s perils and possibilities

When the soul takes flight on unshackled wings.

Artwork by Christian Schloe

Jennifer Wenn is a trans-identified writer and speaker from London, Ontario. Her first poetry chapbook, A Song of Milestones, has been published by Harmonia Press (an imprint of Beliveau Books). She has also written From Adversity to Accomplishment, a family and social history; and published poetry in Beliveau Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Watchyourhead, Open Minds Quarterly, Tuck Magazine, Synaeresis, Big Pond Rumours, the League of Canadian Poets Fresh Voices, Wordsfestzine, and the anthologies Dénouement and Things That Matter.  She is also the proud parent of two adult children. Visit her website here. 

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