I wrote a pretty good post for this piece, then lost it in trying to upload it.  Thank goodness I always compose real poems in Word and copy and paste my new lines here.

Just so you know, it was something about the mists of autumn, and the reminders of death, and the not really minding real death because time is not real, and we’ve been dead but we’ve not died.

21 September 2016

21

Fates in a Roil Dream Us One

I’ve trailed alongside all these frail woodland gardens, these places of weather no mortal can see

without giving way to an old, wordless longing that death should lie down here and now, beside me.

New weather surrounds us, with fine airs and graces that even the sweet faery angels would

strip from the skin of our hearing as false in its precious demeanor. Its corpse might be stood

by the head of our bed, with a pencil mark leaving a record—that this fearful creature stood three or four feet

from magic to endlessness, coughing a little, and sad, even crying. I heard its heart beat

out loud as it held itself up, wanting only to fall down and curl in a circle and weep

without any witness. It made me so happy to know I had seen this in clear early sleep,

had had several hours to compose my response, and then held out my hand, as he raised his wet face.

Even this very next night, we’ll be dancing together in Moonlit arboreal space,

as curtains of luscious green light wave all round us like flags from a ship carried here by pure force

of utterly unspoken love who has known its desire for the power this wild watercourse

has run on since last tidal, final disasters drove acres of land over oceans of cliffs.

I just trail alongside the loved one who’s vanished, who will once again, as we’re still hearing riffs

so mournful, so knowing, so rooted in being aware of the distance between there and here—

I’ll follow this trail a while longer; I’m not going home altogether till our one soul’s clear

in the mirror we hold to ourselves—and each other. I can scarce sleep for my hearing your cries.

New worlds are viewed in good focus, but that’s—never mind. Under underworld newfallen skies,

gardens of beautiful branches bent low to the source of the keening their bare children share—

gardens will green in the morning, and new leaves will reach out in fragrance, and blossoms will wear

the smile—the first, tenderest blossom—the cast of your sight as your turned to behold old light’s source.

Humanly beautiful woman, you cast your own shadow before that of love’s oldest horse,

the nightmare who taught you how long in the saddle you’d have to ride hard—then she left you alone

with the otherworld’s best, gladdest answer, the man who was ghost first, and then living musics’s lost moan

that no one will ever remember if you will not share out these weird, nightly cables and posts.

Under the lamplight that’s shaded by branches of evergreen forests that harbor our ghosts—

two little lovers who walk close beside one another scarce dare to join hands—but they should.

I had to die many times before I—knew the man I felt sent here to love—was no good—

unless he’d read back all the fluid transcriptions that made so much ink cost a sad girl new tears.

This subtle, gentle reminder of ghosts who have entered your dreams, and said Vacate! to fears—

Walk through the forests our friends have kept safe from the saw of the hater who counts—and loves none.

Nightmares await, but we’re sleepy, so sleepy; we’ll lie down where fates in a roil dream us one.