The bluffs in all their pristine cathedral-like wonder
Call with a persistence that haunts me day and night
In that shadow time that is neither dreaming nor waking
I go there and crawl through the mud on a beach stained
indigo
The stones of my childhood run black with blood and tears
An old willow trembles, weeps dead snakes and impossible dreams
And tiny lighted vessels set off from the shore with all
the people
I have ever loved aboard and waving under the light
Of a sickly moon, a double corona'd moon so lopsided
I wonder if it's the moon at all and not just some
imposter nailed
Into the sky and in the time it takes to wonder this
The tiny vessels
drift so far out in the lake; I can't reach
Them; now they are
ablaze and all aboard are screaming—
I keep brushing at my face as if spider webs are blinding
me
If I can just get free of them I will wake up and
everyone will be saved.
S.E.Ingraham©
