the wide periphery

The ceiling goes on as far as the eye can see, right up to the walls. The shelves below it stacked with books and tchotchkes, photos and old toys surrendered to the dust. The ragged baggage abandoned for a moment, the precious treasures carefully placed, they all hold their ground as they are battered by a single silty light. Memories thicker than the cobwebs that cling to the corners waiting to alight on every shelf. A portrait of a former goat squints pettily from its frame. There is always music somewhere, padding out the atmosphere. There is always a window open, letting in the night. 

The dreams drift in and out, vague notions and sharp words. Black hair and bare shoulders, a stairway to the moon. An impact like the strike of grief upon awakening as the dreaming turns away, the heart a sharp and sinking note. The long sad sustain, everything fading so fast, to live is to lose and lose. Even the dreams will leave you once the leaving begins. The frames fill with empty pictures, mysteries mounting with every year that flees. One day all the names will be as lost as the dreams they cherished. One day the waking won’t take. 

There are foxtails on the pillow. There are burrs in the bedding. The earth imbues its multitudes with every appetite to pick the locks and pass through the walls, the seasons beating down on the roof and rafters, the ground rising up through the foundation. Constellations wheel unseen as the wan electric bulb struggles to shine. Heaven hides its grace somewhere off beyond the wide periphery as the organisms slink and writhe, singing and reaching and hungering along. The candles aren’t even counted, let alone lit. The blessings all beggared as the words, one by one, crawl away to die.