dreamscape

apotheosis, have I reached it?  how
do I know?  the busy morning light
cool, deliberate, brightens the room
and ephemeral voices keep me company
from the radio on the floor.

I am adulthood now: I guess:
the child still cringes, but the
adult beginning to learn how to look
without flinching.  the hard edges
of the day continue to bruise -

but why they are there, and why
they must be, I understand.
arms stretched on a cross signify
exquisite pain - love
nailed in the bone

and how the umbilical stretches
from her to me
all the way back through space and silence
to source, incipience, first
contact of eyes - the precarious

finger still stretches, touches,
gilding life with a golden rim:
aura and halo unseen, but there.
city granite is grey if looked at
through grey eyes - apotheosis

is distillation, comprehension that
rises to the surface like the sun, now,
breaking through the day to
cast its gold at me: the dark
does not hurt for long, and pain

both here and gone, is bearable.  I
am not undone - this is a high
place far from the beach where
shells of other lives glitter.
even the gutter: dreaded nadir

has no power over us here: all
we are in the moment is all
we have.  there is nowhere to get to,
one said - I add: except the long slow
turn on the route back to oneself.

previous poem