By The Edge Of The River After Dusk
For Jim C. You always arrive alone in the thought-transforming hour after dusk: the time of day that unseen flocks of geese ride on, when they leave for distant lakes. You can hear their cacophonous chatter above the thick cloud-line of trees, and think of boats sailing for ports that no one you know has ever seen. And nearer still are the disembodied voices of those who came to try and then turned away — their shouting fills the absent spaces in their lives like unfingered clay on the world-spinning wheel. You know these voices well, being undressed from your own dream of substance in fists and in tongues. Now these voices die away too and your aloneness swells to the size of the evening and seeks the inviting spaces between the trees — so everything is filled. And you remember how you came here on the well-marked path that ran from the town to the grove. You remember it clearly in your mind when you look down and see nothing but grass, dead leaves, and small stones. The wandering vines have swallowed your feet like the spreading of sleep. But the swirl of the stream nearby is a sound you can keep in your mind like a soul plucked harp. And the white eyes of the water where it meets the old dam is your sight. While somewhere just beyond the opposite side of the creek — awaits your other life.
Coming Into The Clearing
The vista opens before you like the sudden swoop of a jay in the forest reminds the dreamer that everything is variations of sound and light, and starts to watch the play of green on green. While the howl of the wolf in the distance is rising through a sorrowful sky for the deaths of everything you see. You know that his cry awakens the feelings you are unable to say in words — this shy poet of the wind. But you wonder if you have left something behind on the trail — an astute perception, a far-reaching plan. You want to look back, but your eyes are already filling with the shadows the sun makes, sinking behind a layer of clouds at the placid end of the day. When all the sparrows have ceased to fly, but gather in trees and wait for the dusk to arrive like oblong silhouettes of stones. And you remember the song that is playing somewhere just behind the smooth brow of your head. And to your left is the child who is never there when you look. He is speaking quietly to himself — perhaps reciting the lines of a book you loved to read aloud, but have forgotten the name. When you turn around, all you can see are his lips.
