“Everybody’s talkin bout it
Only the echoes of their mind I’m going where the sun keeps shining. Through the pouring rain” Nilsson (from the incredible film, Midnight Cowboy)
The ghosts
in blue mountain mist
when early morning
without mask of sleep
hiking the trail
moss, lichen, turning with seasons
from brown to red
snails leave their silver lines
bugs shed wings and legs
all becomes humus and is recycled
air remains still, days elongated
the stone in the field
is in the memories of many
who use it as their gravitation
where they first kissed, sitting atop the world
thinking themselves the only ones
when it is the stone, smooth with wear
coarse with textures varied
who gives them their fantasies
pearlescent when wet, like the moon
nestled in long grass
its reflection held against sky
I hear birds waking
crying to an unforgiving bird god
their beaked woes and delights
and the worm waits for false patter
to rise and be consumed
a ritual, as anything
the dust of ceremony, rising and falling
jewels encrusted in boulders
black earth laying deep and gaping
as open-mouthed children
stare at bewitching cloud formation
and wish to inherit the future
as their parents
dream of retracing
the lowing
of their former lots
…
The ghosts
in blue mountain mist
when early morning
without mask of sleep
I feel your absence like
blunt knife run along my spine
in the fallow chapbook of my heart
quivering her spent arrows
as I strain my neck in search
of ways to forget
the goats and sheep remain
black and white finger paint against
yellowed grass coarse as raw silk
a sharp outline of grief blurs
the edges of what I see
where you have all
gone
your lives full
and mine empty with echo
I think if I can ever reach the feeling
maybe I’ll join you
where it glitters and preens
like a girl catching herself
in shining mirror of
first times
TheFeatheredSleep 