Desert sands:
I take them up in my hands
And let them fall.
Swirling clouds rise up around me,
Ghosts of tomorrow under a setting sun.
Am I so dissipated, O spirit of the universe?
Flying American,
Just over the cloudline:
We hover over a sea of snow
Punctured by cracks of brown abyss.
Valhalla:
The sun blazes brightly on the white billows.
I imagine trying to walk on the ice and vapors.
It is a revelation,
Deceptively clear.
I've aspired to these heights,
Yet may I retain in them
Any real understanding?
The glass is dark in the wood-burning stove,
The fire dying.
More wood, more wood;
I open the doors and pile on new logs,
Throw wide an entrance for the encroaching winter night.
The fresh air and the fuel
Revive the sluggish creature of light.
Another few hours of warmth
Are purchased thus,
But I,
I am stifled in my stuffy little room,
Wanting for new fuel and gasping for air.
Standing at the water's edge,
I see myself,
Reflection rippling and mutating.
I waver and vanish in the chaos,
Recorporate and coalesce in the calm.
I am the formless summoned into form,
Reservoir of thoughts flowing into the great river.
I will flow from the hills into the valleys,
Through the marshes and lowlands,
Into the sea of what is Past,
A current among a host of currents.
We shall lap at your shores,
Summon seaside dreamers to cross our shimmering
fields,
Spawn new life in the infinite,
Turbulent mystery of our depths.
George Chadderdon © 1997