I walk Death’s dusty
road
that dream time
realm between
sleeping and waking
full of drowsy
half rememberings
where faeries flit
and gnomes patrol.
I glide on feet
who pull me in the
way that I perhaps
have already walked…
I can’t recall.
where stolen memories
gleam on the edge
of vision, tempting
me with their promise.
And woven with them
the souls and fates
of lost boys.

I stumble on
as traditions and
ceremonies crash
in the land about
me. I move through
it listlessly, until
with glazed eyes
tired spirit I
happen upon an
oasis. Still waters
the color of
daydreams
reflect a new
moon. And my
eyes alight as my
soul remembers
how to breathe.
Then from the
pool her image
rises,
and her beauty
is without form
or substance.

Yet as her
image resolves
before me, ghostly
and insubstantial
as the moonlight
that suffuses
the air about me,
I become
certain of her
reality and the
sparkle of hope
rekindles somewhere
inside me. As it
does the sun rises
and the dreamy
mists of what life
was dissolves
in its rays.

                AcB        9.15.98