Sleeping & Dreaming: Three Poems

Child asleep.

Dreaming

The shuttered gentle creatures
of your sleep, it seems,
aroused by night, wake up,
invade my dreams

as yours...go rumbling
through the hours at play
and locked in flight...

Come floating down to pillow earth
at dawn, and now, deliciously
inform my day
as yours--will not forget.

On 8.17.12 revised
Ariella, 2 years old, and now 4.

 __________________

 

Watching the Storm

Morning Asleep

I photographed the shadowed ceiling

And watched one wheeling gull;

Put the camera close to where

My feelings used to be...

Then rested next to you—

Still sleeping like a child

With tousled hair—

Took a deep breath

Directed my eyes above,

(That knotty-pine) but not in prayer,

Still thinking…

Closed my eyes again, and

Tried to give a simple name

To what we have,

Finally settling on the perfect word:

It’s love.

_____________________

Descending Moon.

 

Cavalry

Of course I remember the night,

Basics, you said,

From baby to boy to man,

And I said yes, I understand

And did understand

And was glad to link them up right.

No, now I look back,

The agreement fell apart.

It was you that

Carried me away,

Cleaved to a white skinned

Silver saddle,

Your leather brown and bright,

How, locked,

We rode furiously into night.

Into shadowed woods,

But I took you back again,

Back to a cradle

In which I held the boy so tight.

When you descended,
As from a tree too high,

I saw no officer in sight.

Mostly I remember you,

Sandy-haired by your lathered steed.

How you seemed tied to some favorite lullaby,

Fell sleeping at my side.

c.1970, For Denny                             

                                           

Poetry Feature: Kay Weeks, with photographs.

8.17.12   Variations on a theme, over time.