Unstrained, I sit and gaze, glare, survey, starethrough barred windows encased in embroidered steel. Pearly frosted dust obstructs the channels of light, leaving only small pillars of fire, arranged in disordered fragments. The antiquated sallow walls are stained with crimson braids that wreathe and scuttle about the rimes and rifts.

I am a waning birdencased in a glass sphere;I cannot see my prison,and my cries no one can hear.

I long to drift through turquoise skies;race the wind in rampant flight.Ruddy chains have framed my eyes,they seize my heart and stain the light.

I touched the moon last night;a golden glow beyond my grasp.Eons before me it rested there.It will remain when I am dust.My hand now glows from the embrace.Voices echo through nights past,and with the glow, caress my face.My finger faints from what will last.Alone I am; alone secure;the moon will last when I am gone.A Master set it in its’ place,to move the tide, refresh the dawn.Unnumbered eyes have felt its rest;have looked upon reflected light.My heart is moved away from pain;I touched the moon last night.

Wander with intentinto a garden glorious.Walk with double briskupon edenic paths.Flee the cursing fearthat lights upon your eye.Seize the twisted dreamthat strangles earth and sky.

Peace is not found in the sea.It is found when I dream of eternity.

Then, as a single snowflake flares and flickers upon voicing its final breath, so two eyes make silent conversation with mine. A face as iridescent as candle-fire purls verse and poetry. My eyes read her every intent as a wave of recollections floods my senses.

O, the sorrow of us all,to wander the earth in a shell.And looking to the heavens,we lay to rest in hell.The suffering of the innocentin the midst of Jacob’s well.How the miles fled between us,and that distance is still great.Though on the same shore we now sit,in temporal quietude to wait.The moon is our bright witness;it will lead us to the gate.

To your simple existence, do not boast;merely to breathe or move or think is not to live.The shore of the sea is but a ghost,compared to the depth its wholeness gives.You exist in the miry foam;make the ocean depths your home.

I walk the sand alone,and feel it stirring as I roam,upon this breathing earth,where wave on wave begins new birth.I sense a grand facade,where colors paint the hand of God.And in remorseful pain,I dance the stones of bitter strain.

Deep blackness waits outside;a veiled inferno it attempts to hide.We see no more than dark clouds growing,but set inside, a fire is glowing.

In freedom you form in utter disgrace,the bars of my prison this night.While you drift on currents of seraphim heights,it is I who deserve to take flight.

The winged beasts and angels know, that mortals cannot fly. But how I flew to see the sun; a broken bird am I.

I roamed alone;O, barren dreams.My echoed voice,what lonely comfort.Here is my salvation:I hear the triumph drum;the rhythm of the rising,the long-awaited sun.

Some say the ocean roars,I hear it ever weeping.Weep, ocean, weep for those gone before.Weep, O sea, for the open graves that fill your shore.

But with what wonder has the season come?Its treasure lies in earthen ships,that carry dreams across the foam.And how your memory of Sarah rapesthe fleshly heart that once bore scenes,now veiled in smoky stains of tears;it cries as on its crutches leans,and ever fills itself with fears.Be born anew to taste the skyLay waste cocoon and upwind fly.

A pebble thrown in a poolmay ripple from end to end,but tossed into the sea,it is swallowed by enormity.

Golden bars make no less a prisonthan a coffin on a hill.And in caged reformation,one wanders aimless still.The rafters now a recollectionof sacred suppression.How the morning dawnstrikes mourning confession.Now Death yields a harvestof the living masses.We walk toward its pathno earthly power surpasses.