Noctivagus

 

It is he alone that accepts the task and rises from my bed at night

To take my place in daring dreams and do what I could not intend

Only through his lucid eyes will I retrieve a glance beyond…

And soon depart from my own safety, doomed to fill his fearless steps

 

Down to twisting caverns lit by geode gardens strangely bright

Through spider web complexity and doubtful depths of dragon sleep

Where fumes of steaming lava spring invade a grotto’s dusty lungs

And skulls of long forgotten creatures break down into transient powders

 

Oily black abandoned vaults that never know the changing months

Strangers to the wind-swept fields, the pollen breeze and orchid scent

Stripped of the speech of gurgling streams, bickering birds and pounding rain

Miles below the subtleties and pleasures of a rural Eden

 

A mockery of the wild horse’s spacious and unfettered range

Daunting in its bold dimensions, deep and dark instead of wide

 Humid like a bottled storm, precluding that which reeks of death

A death that guards decaying structures built by men who fell in progress

 

Pausing on a torch-lit step, I close my eyes and concentrate

On distant comely woodland vistas stolen from some antique painting

Cardinals yield a flash of red, flamboyant over virgin snow

A glimpse of evanescent mildness missed as though a mother’s face

 

Another breath resumes the trek through a transromantic underworld

Further down a flickering stairwell plagued with crudely hinting symbols

Travelers reap no sane rewards from such a bleak nocturnal outing

What impending natural force allures me from the sun’s caress?

 

The one that steals my form for brash intentions has survived the night

Courageous in the spaces where my waking self would cringe in terror

Fleeing through the morning air as I return to sweaty sheets

Waiting for my consciousness to take another deadly fall