Crossing-points

The fragile edifice of flesh:
a bridge between that world
and this, a crossing-point
for spirits seeking respite
from the wilderness.

They shelter for the hours of sleep
within this sweet sarcophagus,
below the temple on the heights
bleached by the moon’s
inconstant light.

At dead of night they rise refreshed
from secret catacombs and caves,
to cross like refugees by stealth
and enter dreamscapes of the self.

They cross the span that separates
the homeless spirits from the rest
and surf the dreamer’s cybernet,
their presences unnamed, unguessed.

But as the quality of light
defines the limits of their stay
they slip across the threshold
before dawn can broaden into day.

The dreamer wakes, bereft,
dazed by chimeras glimpsed and sensed,
gazes at the empty street
where shadow visitants have fled,
as all the subtle otherworldly resonance
begins to fade.



Athens, autumn 2000