In deep night, darkened sleep
I sail on the spectral wings of phantoms
who carry me to enthralling realms
dizzying orbits of dreams loosened
from the moorings of time
spinning in an ocean of space.
The pale light of morning presses
against the shuttered glass, the quiet,
when even birds do not yet call.
I open my eyes to a shimmer –
darkness leaving without a word, in silence,
as portents of labyrinthine sleep
order themselves into the light of day.
So often, as sleep vanishes into fading night
I wish a few moments more
for I doubt the meaning of the day before me
wonder if it will be kind?
Shake it off, illusion of night!
The day dawns new as never before
I in it, I it’s being with all else in it –
light, sacred, enchanting – without end.
Portland, Oregon – September 11, 2018
“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
In Cascadia 