Bubble

I had a dream of sadness, though
now it's fading and not half
as real as this valley of children
and animals playing.

"Come, little one. Sit with me
beneath this spreading tree."

"What are you doing?"

"Thinking of something far away,
so small it's disappearing."

"Like a bubble?"

"Yes. A feeling--the name
escapes me."

Follow

I follow forest signs that point to you. The maple leaves,
fiddle heads and lady's slippers whisper, directing me.

Is this my destination? The old foundation
of a house, a suggestion of grass and stone. Here,
my feet have found a hollow sound, it's reverberating
underground. I pry back with little ease a door laid
in the floor long ago. A cellar, a hideaway, who knows
what for. Stairs descend into the deep.

Subterranean shade envelops me, absorbing light
and the sound of my feet. I trust one foot to follow
another, how far down I do not know, though it has
grown cold. The stairs cease suddenly--there, I have
arrived. Where?

I sit and wait, wondering if this cave is part of you. If
I lit a candle, would I light it inside you? If I called,
would my voice ring through you? I feel a presence
in the stillness. It is you, and then you are gone, leading...

How long this cave, the dark? I am blind like a worm
and what do worms know of meters and lengths measured
painfully slow? I only follow.

Was that a breeze? Yes, blowing softly at first but it grows--
there! A light, a sheet of white beyond the cave, or whatever
it is, this cradle of dark.

Before me, a downpour of living light, a molten crystal
stream. Neither its source nor end do I see, only vapors
rising from the deep, shrouding the sheer cliff beneath.

Shall I make my way back to the forest, fiddle heads,
and stones or step through the door of the unknown? Will
the flood strip my skin, leaving only my spirit to step
through the mist, or will I plunge headlong to certain death?

You know.
You lead on, I follow.