Where is that mysterious country
where I do not know myself?
Where I am unguarded.
Where fate pours me from its glass
and I recede into the walls.
Where nothing is locked.
Where the ceiling sails away like the moon,
possessing its own light,
and I tremble in a room
where nothing is sure.
Where my eyes are useless,
and my life belongs to the wind,
to things calling in the distance,
to footsteps that never approach,
never go away,
and stories play out their themes.
Where grief has left me calling out forever,
to things wistful as a fog,
and my heart lies on the ground
a shattered dove.
Or countries I have never seen,
with languages not my own.
Cloth spun on looms fine as a web,
stars tangled in its weave,
with the touch of grass,
lustrous as dew,
the color of a meadow.
So it is I dream of things
that tangle me in lighting,
in plays not written for earthly halls.
All rushing into silence,
to the heavy breathing of my fear,
caught in the blankets,
my eyes staring at the wall,
in cold relief at waking.
Then with a sigh I close my eyes
dropping back into sleep,
a prayer,
that I be delivered to dawn,
in one piece,
from the vast sea of creation.