that rattling at midnight-- was it the moon?
the scent of moonlight and cedar
waft in through the window.
when i am gone, will my dreams
remain here?

strands of longing are the woven
cloth of dreams--a maple tree, its branches
caught on the clouds, a moment of rain,
and a small blue shadow
that has housed an uncommon courage
crossing a long ocean.

this is not the new world i had hoped for.
not the world you and i had imagined
in the churning quiet over breakfast
when we told each other our newlywed dreams--
those promises to always be together

have dissolved in the river
of tragedy smoothing itself
over all the surfaces of our hopes,
adorning our hearts
with the bugs and twigs of time,

filling our ears with the drowning echoes
of everything we left behind