The sheets do not talk. The warm breeze
does not know that autumn is near;
The language of premonition
Is burrowed like a fossil in my pillow.
Here lies all that once was
And no longer is, all that will be
But evades my pulsing heart.

The crickets echo in the dark,
Distant moans that belong elsewhere.
And just when moonlight
Grazes the earth, memory
Shines from some distant source,
Metallic, grey, mysterious:
Cloaked in the garb of misery.

What am I to think, alone at night
In my room? That time is taut,
Brittle and easy to break?
That the distance between now and then
Is greater than that between here and there?
Or that my alarm, piercing the air,
Is like a sword dividing dreams from reality?

Tuesday, September 27, 2011