Serpentine Squiggles

If I may ask a moment of your time,
O lonesome traveler on the barren road,
Beneath a sky of newly​-​routed clouds,
With a canteen hung hollow at your hip—

I promise that I won’t accompany
Or burden long. I only wish to ask:

Do you admire the ocean? I myself,
Oft dream of distant seas I’ve never seen
So vast, and so insatiable — complete.
You can sail them, and you can drown.

Some fear the roiling deep, see wrath in waves.
But I like to think those waters conjure storms.
And I always found it quite noble how
Rainclouds can shield us from the blinding rays.

(But I suppose you can’t drink all that salt.)

Do you perhaps prefer the lakes? Each bears
A surface not quite still, riled but contained.
So finite and yet forever renewed.
You can sustain a town around its coast.

Some, I know, think reflections beautiful.
But I like to think that darkness danced in the depths
And I always found it rather cruel how
Dawnglow can pin the shadows, cage their forms.

(And yet a lake would offer more to you.)

Do you appreciate ponds, too? At least,
A line of stalwart trees could fence and shade,
Their quaint, comfortable isolation.
You can have a picnic, perhaps feed the ducks.

Some — many — do dislike the mud and murk.
I like to think that newts and slimy things
Find peace along the bottom, safely sunk.
And I always found it distressing how
Lordly sunlight exposes, strips, and sees.

I dare not taunt you further now. I won’t
Describe oases or old wells to you,
O lonesome traveler on the barren road
With a canteen hung hollow at your hip.

(I dread to count how many draughts you’d need.)

I promised that I wouldn’t burden long.
But I suppose I need one answer more.

What do you think of stagnant water stuck
In tiny pools, like careless drinks spilled out,
Or the lingering last dregs of grander things,
Now sinking down or sighing out to air?

How are you happy seeing it? Mere drops?
But I suppose there’s nothing else for you
Here on the barren road, once clouds have routed.
Oh well. That’s all; you have endured what I dare ask,
And you seem parched. But I wanted to say:

I’m sorry that this puddle couldn’t be the whole ocean.
And I think the sun will shine before it rains again.

But have you seen them, wordless, still,
The one who sleeps without a dream?

Can I convey the numbness sown
(More like to salt than any crop)
That leaves the mind’s inward eye itself
A blind, unseeking, feeble thing?

That they could travel ’cross the raw,
Arid expanse of a great black desert,
Sun grinding frictious, thirsty heat,
Without even one glimpse of a mirage.

Do you recognize this empty husk,
The one who sleeps without a dream?

Desires dead, silent—yet, there is,
Like cities left alone in ruin,
A calmness here…

A calmness here…is this silence?
Sound’s somber, still absence?
Or vacuum, that vast and abstract wound
Which tears away breath, steals, dilutes,
Remains ever unfilled, always?

Is there any aspiration left
For the souls of naught but vaccuum,
For the traveler witnessing no mirage
For the one who sleeps without a dream?

One wonders, and would wonder long
The searching fruitless, like of scuttling bugs
With nowhere to hide. Yet were one to pace
Another would see—and would you not lend aid?

A moment’s company?

For what is a dream, if not a gift,
For the delight and diligence of those,
Who listen to the dream, who nourish and bless:
For a dream only lives when shared.

Is there hope for the one without a dream?
Are there words for the mute to convey,
To those with patience to watch and learn?
The one without a dream is not
Without something to dream about.

Or someone who might find it.

A wish
That all asudden and above
A cloud might light upon my shoulders calm
  (A thunderclap that turned away,
    A rain withheld within)
      To unfurl there
        And breathe;
That glitt’ring wings of dew and rain
  At once would fain unfurl behind
    Then lift me back up to
      The clouds or stars
        And see;
That mine own body’d escape the ground
  With all the same ease as
    My thoughts the truth
      And fly;

A wish that smiles and flutters beyond our reach
  As a cloud that lights down upon our minds
    That delights by just unfurling
      And baring itself…

…For all the world.

Through these eyes of a critic,
Is nothing alight with luster
Which may pierce this scrim of
Too exacting a standard?

Through these eyes of a critic,
Can something kindle music
Which may burn away all,
Save that we call sublime?

Through these eyes of a critic,
Should anything be suffered
Which may wriggle from its shell
And ascend a height terribly close?

Through these critical eyes
Is there nothing at all
Which may be seen?
And wept for?