Silver on Stone on Dreams

Without the sun one must speak of moonlight bending down to brush my cheek. Two nights ago I accepted this proxy into my bed.

From the three seasons room, I hear the neighbor whistling a bird song over and over to call a sickly squirrel. No birds or squirrels respond. Over the mournful plea I listen to a Maslanka concerto and I am healed.

Your questions are a compass to the truth. My hands are slow in the dark but they do not fumble. Lord, hear our prayer.

Before sleep I empty my pockets of the day's lessons. In a small stone dish, my silver elephant necklace, two rings and tiny silver hoops all fall upon each other for the night. My image in a dusty mirror – a cleft in the void – my body understands more than my mind.

Silver on stone on dreams. It is hard to tell what is dead or merely just dormant. Speak to my blood and see if it rises. Otherwise I am only a vessel of image, floating from dawn to dark and thinking of nothing.

Rapt in the here and not-here. Tell me again that story using all the words that you knew would melt me. Trick me into kissing it all away.

Under remnant scraps of October leaves, acorns take hold by sending one thick shoot down into groaning earth. I rake and uproot; I clear and am cleared. Sometimes turning the dirt is useful to induce forgetfulness.

Gray upon gray but no rain. This spring waits and waits but I am not fooled. Despite the standstill I know winter arrives on time, no matter how long summer delays to know me. Tell me this Mother Earth: why am I not already one of your tall grasses bending in the wind?