Revised in Reverie

Last night, 

Making my way down some straight precipices, 

In my dream of course, 

And perhaps on a mountainous landscape

Among energies undaunted

By a climb, 

Or a fall 

I remember walking on in

Trepidation 

Wondering if in fact I could

Claw my way straight back up

Those channeled precipices

And then 

I figured, 

I could not, and then 

Wanting to be small and lithe, or

Wanting to be

At least an old woman

Worth speaking with—

You know how, 

When someone sets aside 

Papers, view

Anything

Shifts away toward and 

From window, table

Chair

Eye cocks and

Softens

An extra beat in time saying

Perhaps, 

An unexpected gesture…

Her unexpected gesture…

I return from a reverie 

To a reverie, musing 

What, then—

From the corner of my eye, 

The dreaming eye,

I see the stairs. 

They are the color of

Those steep precipices of clay,

And walking towards them

Miasma, past as always, 

I pick up my shoulders 

Not so little my time

Different than so little time 

In a recognition

I see that, but had I not, 

I would not now see 

The vast of it

I’ve always seen horizon, and

Just now my inner landscape’s 

Verticality.