Slowly Like Dawn

Turning the page of night, star and moonless, no conversation but the prayer for sleep.

Each fall, days and nights reverse in my body. By day I struggle to connect into the living. By night I am trapped in a burning building, unable to live or die. I'll work now to keep one tide back and bring forth another. Cannabis, the gym, hiking through dune grass. I stare deep into my cup of coffee knowing it is both allowing sanity and keeping me in thrall. No moon as companion. No bridge between light and dark.

Last of summer yield, clipped lavender and sage for drying. A few cherry tomatoes still redden, albeit slowly, like dawn. Lately I have been walking through webs because, though I am not seen, I am not a ghost. After garden inspection, McGrath poems:

AT LOST LAKE

Sometimes I don't know which is better:
The land at the edge of the water
Or the water at the edge of the land.

Now, though I am sleepless, dancing on edges of knives and dreams, I am innocent! No more blame and no more crying for Love. Only healing. It is possible I am awake to express my gratitude for “such a time as this.”

I was sun-blind by beauty crawling eastward and now, my eyelids are drowsy with the fullness of what Love has shown me.

Sticks and stones as art.
Turtles, rivers and lakes — the only way I know how to thank you.