you whisper to their souls.

Fallen you lie: feathers barely ruffled
but you do not move.
This is not the habit of your kind.

It rises, it rises.
I sit before you on the grass and you watch me.
Motion is shattered in your wings;
in mine too, for I would move
to see reclaimed what seems not real,
not true above truth, but a dream,
distant as the countless stars.

I watch you till the end.
You in your fevered stillness,
given to this new dream that has pounced
to consume you. Wound tightly in reality
and buried in the soil we tread daily.

When you are gone (too soon, too slow)
in the afternoon, I remember. Yours is the story, seen,
carefully chosen and closely known,
of the promise in those hands unseen.
There we have found all that is taken
and all that is given in its place.

under the branches there are shadows.

Under the branches there are shadows
as the light is cast in torrents
through their fingers like nets. All interwoven, all around.
And the moments, they all wait for your return
when I will wake upon your shoulder.

There are many questions in my mind. Many questions,
but there is no word. Only your silence, your word of silence,
your word of the waiting day. So I lie down, silent.

Once there was a dream, quietly but near.
In this dream there was a voice.
In the voice of the dream there was a sign.
Hungry hours collide as silence.

We sat together by the cold water
in the early morning: in my dream, I had woken.
That cup is made for wine, he said. Come
away from this stream,
you with the dusty feet. I will show you
a table of gold, and streams of wine,
and crystal streets.

So it seems, after all, there is a table,
in the world inside the world.

We sailed together on the high tide.
Any time now my anchor will settle
and I will be still.
Every hour, now, your footsteps sound across the waves
and I am listening.

I am listening to the rain on the sea,
to the roar of its songs,
to the young wind crying.
Only the step after step has faded.
Here we sit together in the old way
listening to the oceans;
but you have not spoken, like once you have spoken.

(Or if I were listening:
After all this time,
we are going to the place from which we came.)

As I woke the light was fading, among the branches.
It fades, but it rekindles every morning.
I fade as well, but I will wake upon your dawning,
and know that you are listening.
So I lie down, silent.

please turn on the light.

Whistling at the window is a small bird.
Would you like to travel to the wide fields? chirps he
in his small song, till I say I
think I'd like to run across those far fields.
Quickly, find your feet, then, and be coming!
Chirrup chirrah chirree,
follow me, twitters he.

I saw you on the sidewalk, and we stopped to ask the way.
Those seas of green we cannot find: we ask you
where to go, if you know.

If you incline your tall ears over here,
you reply,
and throw a coin or two towards my feet,
so you say,
I'll fill those ears with songs and tales
to lead you on the road; the rhythms are
the way to what you seek.

We spin into the dance, twirling
once, twice,
and again—
here we are where we began.

And so with flit of wing and pound of foot
we go on,
with a particular aversion for the sing-song.
We attribute our aversion to your sing-song.

If you take a box of pencils
you must write us something new:
we are searching for the new!
When you stumble on a story
you are plucking on the strings,
saying,
Ho, hum,
sing along.
Heard it all before.

We are caught in restless dreams:
swim through land,
walk on sea,
searching for the missing thing, and

stop just for a moment! See,
though we sleep we are not still, and
when we wake we cannot move.
Look again. There is something left.
Surely there is something left.
Lying by the pavement, we are
waiting; watching
the direction that it might have gone,
when it fled.
Maybe it will come again.

Sitting by my bedside, now, I see
something there, in the dark, and I
listen to the silence till our breathing,
like my blanket, covers me. I open
up my wide mouth and I sing a song or two
(just the same I sang to you,
yesterday);
then I lift my voice in stories of the great
far and wide, till the frenzy and the wonder
almost send my soul to sleep.
Put a stamp on quickly. The address is to my dreams.

But the shadow over yonder takes my story
to the shelf and leaves it there. It takes its own
and starts to read, here and now, over me.
Threads of green rush over me,
glistening like the wind.
Maybe I will listen to a word or two;
probably I'll close my eyes.
Would you like to listen, if I
take you there?
Maybe it will put to bed your tired feet.

Maybe it is time to sleep.