An Essay Concerning Light by John Burnside

O nobly-born, listen. Now thou art experiencing the Radiance of the Clear Light of Pure Reality. 
Recognize it. O nobly-born, thy present intellect, in real nature void, not formed into anything as 
regards characteristics or colour, naturally void, is the very Reality, the All-Good.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead (tr. W. Y. Evans-Wentz)

I  Scotlandwell

All summer long, I waited for the night
to drive out in the unexpected gold
of beech woods, and those lighted homesteads, set
like kindling in the crease-lines of the dark,

catching a glimpse, from the road, of huddled dogs
and sleepless cattle, mustered in a yard
as one flesh, heads
like lanterns, swaying, full of muddled light;

light from the houses television blue,
a constant flicker, like the run of thought
that keeps us from ourselves, although it seems
to kindle us, and make us plausible,

creatures of habit, ready to click
into motion. All summer long,
I knew it had something to do
with looking again, how something behind the light

had gone unnoticed; how the bloom on things
is always visible, a muddled patina
of age and colour, twinned with light or shade
and hiding the source of itself, in its drowned familiar.