The Night Book

• Brattleboro Exchange

  Posted: May 1, 2008, 4:44 am by Levari

  You had dreams
  but they slipped away
  so quietly
  that we failed to notice
  until we had stacked
  them up in boxes.
  
  Standing now,
  years later,
  along these tracks,
  sun beaming down,
  through the thin, blue air,
  
  black birds overhead,
  two of them,
  slicing south
  through the
  north wind,
  
  then landing on the
  flashing crossing light
  to pick and clean each other's
  wings.
  
  The train pulls in.
  The birds scatter.
  I board for you
  to take us further.
  
  Sitting with my back facing front,
  wheels churning,
  
  rust stained snow,
  
  past lakes outlined in white,
  past abandoned houses,
  and houses that should be,
  and all New England's playgrounds
  buried in the ancient ice;
  
  where have you been,
  where once was your home?
  
  What am I looking for?
  
  Where you have been,
  where once was your home.
  
  Always following your tracks,
  that is all I ever did,
  
  Waiting for our eyes
  to whisper to me:
  
  where you have gone,
  where once was our home?
  
  A long time ago
  
  we,
  
  the deepest sleep beneath,
  this always onwards,
  though we only ever
  sit facing backwards,
  always will be my way home,
  you.
  
  ~Burlington, VM to Amherst, MA - 2/96

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes