As in their stables horses dream
A burning screen of summer sky:
the evening set alight
and touched with disappearing.
The island clouds, blue-veined
with purple hues,
as irreplaceable as porcelain -
a breath of marble floating,
so at home
against the rising shadows
of a dying day.
The stubborn threads of fading light
now move the dust that’s grown
on windows that grew tired
of the distances that must remain
between their liquid frame and eye of star.
And now I lie awake,
all swollen fever,
swollen hunger:
a summer haunting - dressed in lust
and love and loss and longing.
As in their stables horses dream
of plains now draped in lightning;
thunder riding on their breath;
the winter smell of hay now turned
to bone, to dust and
corpse grey memories
of green and hungry life
and armies riding,
waving banners,
golden shields and copper spears.
As I, like sleep,
like dream, like horses
moving through the night,
now worry clay-encumbered feet
and scrape the iron sparkles from the bone -
and yes, the hungry sky and dying,
rising shadows hold the answer:
like nothing I have been
or touched before,
I now must turn to you.