My dream returned
like a late crescent moon
riding high over placid waters.
A black rabbit hidden by his own shadow:
still, in the grass at the edge of the road.

My ship came home empty, 
a cargo of whispers
tossed in the easy wind 
without the weight of apples
and iron to hold it's course.

And this summer storm has summoned
rain lilies from under the dessicated oak,
filled the gutters with new bamboo leaves,
washed the windows of the drunkard's cottage
and driven the old cat
from his post on the wall
at the end of the garden,
to the shelter of a window ledge,
where he watches the grey squalls
sweep across the bay.

He is older than I,  and forgotten his name.
We call him by the sound he makes
when hunger wakes and claws inside.

I have not forgotten what the rabbit told me,
or what I read in "The Book of Dreams and Shadow"
on the dusty shelf of the old botanica.

I still recall the hours full of counting.
the lists of great importance.
Categories and expenses.
The taste of secrets.

How did this become the past?
Why can't I put the sky into all of my poems?
Or tell you what the rabbit hides from?
How have my dreams become, 
These scraps of paper in an empty drawer?


(c) William C. Wheeler 2009