Strange Light

in my own air is a strange light

the shadow moves without the body

a body I recalled from a summer I

spent under the sun of a different eon

the oldest friend now gone into

the same river

the one in which we drowned our voices

and his light

is now sprayed over the banks

moving over me quietly

the shadow of a great whale

the trees on the islands are shining

with the grief of last night's rain

the porcelain feathers of night birds

and their weightless wing-bones beating

as sadness is again borne in us

the white sky has forgotten it's sound

with it's own vastness recessing

dreamed into place with the immensity

of everything we have lost

the dying pins my hand to your chest

there is no voice left to speak

words never told much about it

i will not ever see these places again

until reclaimed from neglect and ruin

but were are all here together

without knowing why

burning and breathing our way out