VAGABOND DREAM

I stood on the edge of the desert like a vagabond

No country, no home, nowhere

The boats were dry and scattered

like corn husks for a harvest

that never came

The yellow moon

paling behind smearing clouds

endured in silence and cast

dull shadows in just such silence

Silence, silence everywhere

In the boats the lost were rowing

The old, the young and unknown

Rowing, rowing in a vacant sea

and vacant eyes upheld to a vacant sky

save the moon

The moon

its mindless eye holding

no judgment

nor mercy

yet watching ceaseless

Stepping in the dry sea

the earth moaned

like a lover’s swoon

awaiting thunder

Nascent desire in a nascent land

yearning for release

Then the sky heard

desire reaching for desire

and the clouds gave up their secret rain

and the dark torrent fell like mountains

The sea and the sea that came

rose swollen from the depths

churning in its consummation

The boats and their frail captains

lifted from the earth

and set unmoored for a horizon beyond sight

Rowing a relentless rowing

towards banks of longing

And I in my boat returned

to my shore now birthed

in the ascending wash

in a yearning of my own privatude

And the pale moon beheld it all

Indifferent yet calculating