Sleep

“Sleep”

What will follow whither we go?
Our wings are stone and flutter in the snow
We’re at arm’s length, just beyond our reach:
Always escaping on that leash.

What world lies beyond the scales?
I want to hear the songs and tales
Of these sights I have never seen:
The moments I have lived, and the moments between.
Do the stars shine there upon the butterfly
Kissing the lily beneath an unknown sky?
Are we but thoughts of some sleeper,
Hidden in his bed,
Who cannot confess to the Reaper
That in this sleep, he is dead?

This ghost of a dream that I never viewed,
But whose gilded fields I’ve long pursued
Like a shadow across my failing sight
Falls where the sun meets the night—
Where the soul of my sorrow waits
Between sleep’s phantom gates.
Dear one, I see you there
In such pain as I must bear
To watch you pass beyond the glow
To where I cannot follow.

And what awaits, should I appear
To see that night so clear?
What lies beyond the veil of hours
That this sleep of death devours?
Is all silence? Or does it seem
We meet in one last dream?
Is it there that I will see the face
That I long for?
Or am I damned to haunt this place
As I dream forevermore?

© 2022 Marten Hoyle