Far from a round table, but not from Arthur Street ...

Laying on a damp bed of cool grass
My heavy head held in a bowl of fingers
And heavy lids about to confess
That they haven’t yet seen all they had intended
But it had been enough.

A loud sky finds the back of bare skin
Overwhelmed by the stars and the wind
Which both make more sense
Than the young thoughts that carried my feet to this place
Or the old dreams that will carry them back.

Once the wind settles, the voices grab on
Flickering prayers and steady hopes swim with decent fears
In and out of time like the tides in a tiny glass bowl
Rocking itself to a restless sleep
Before another breeze blows them all away again.

A touch. Maybe it was a kiss. A forgotten chore.
A full night’s duty to the coming day
Sworn to protect and honor what it chases but hasn’t met
And may never know
With a life that was never meant to be it’s own.

Then a song, quick and interrupted but painfully proud
In its defiance of the night, the voices
And sleeping, suffocating giants without concern for the stars, the wind
Or nearby tidal waves of reality
But desperate in its duty to honor what it can no longer defend.

A stampede of love, a cold tear from heaven and a heartbroken cricket
Remind me that it’s not possible to be lonely
Without the burden of regret
Or to sleep soundly without giving yourself up
To the night.