SLEEPLESS IN CURITIBA

It happens every now and then--nights when sleep won't come. This time, instead of tossing and turning in bed, I penned these lines while looking out my window at the lights of Curitiba.

COLORING THE NIGHT

Stop lights blink in reds and greens
Cars rush on in flight
Taxis orange cruise empty streets
No passengers in sight.

Billboards flash in purple hues
Neon paints the sky
Planes take wing in black of night
Wave red and white goodbyes.

Lamp posts don bright yellow caps
Silently they stare
Towers dot the sky with red
While stores show off their wares.

And here I sit in sleepless grays
Coloring the night
From fourteen floors above the street
Anxious for dawn's soft white.