The Future Part II

When we were young,
young ones, we loved
with tender tongues.
Look! We were here
once every eight hundred years
when the North Star rises
in the east, I can't sleep,
trying to keep
those days in my arms
bright and beaming I would sing
(wouldn't you too)
and seem and lean all of my weight
on invisible Arms,

arm-in-arm
after a thousand charms
You still taste sweet
to meet you, pleased
to believe (if only I believe)
something real about those days
leaking out of my arms,
my skin,
my pores.
I'll keep gathering them in like stray sheep
as the universe rolls on
cold and black;
the sunset of destiny,
looking back forever
to the flickering candle of what was
calling me,
pulling me,
push and shove
hands, eyes, and blood.


The climax of the cosmos,
the Voice that calls
up through the soles of my feet,
pleads and pleads
and sees and stings:
"sojourners,
wanderers,
travelers,
we flow."
"You are with Me,"
calls the Voice in the sunrise.
At night I dream;

past armies unfold
the battle of my days.
(uniformed, buttons, bayonets fixed
blood cherry red
in their cold cheeks,
breath condenses in the frosty air)
frozen in still frame,
when I wake,
frozen in my hot brain.

Here, in this maze of universe,
my story bleeds
through their perfectly preserved eyes.
In them I cross the icy rivers
with my newborn flag.
In them the story of the universe
sings through statue eyes,
showing me how
to step into the flame
of these last days.