LULLABY
The hidden stars that the owls sing to.
The white branching birches shift from sight into sound.
The failing grains, the falling grains,
Tempered in Time’s wailing rivers.
We fail again to measure glory,
So sleep weightless and numb.
But that is what keeps us sane:
Stick to the lines once learned.
Recite nothing that breaks the rhyme,
The tick and tock of year in, year out
To forbid the howl of ghosts
And the crack of bone.
Keep the marrow hid, untasted.
The slow circling wings have the names of gods that are patient.
The fine threads, the dust of mould settles in.
Sleep, so as not to dream this dream.
Sleep sight and sound.
Slow sighs: the rise and fall of life within.
The woven world, golden with words.
A throb of muscles and distant gunfire.
Keep the visions in the flame of the hearth.
Keep the prophecy in the cooling cauldron.
The future shall be our breakfast
But now we rest, bathed in owls,
The hidden stars, the birch’s bone fingers,
A blanket weight, an imperceptible falling.
—
simonhlilly 