Dreamery

The imagery subsides,
the words drift off,
and there is nothing
more to think for one moment.
In the subconscious
poetry of night, the rhythms
are scattered, except
when in the eye of a stranger
one spies a savage,
kindred art, and the rhythms
build toward the unknown
heaven. Days and millennia pass.
Were we so truly hopeful,
in the ages of revolution, now past,
when it seemed so
that all our dreams were possible?
For we forget the future —
we have learned how —
where all joined in peace,
and now, we grope through
uncertainty, as if we always had.
I imagine, though, that
the rare faith survives —
yet he, too, is taken.
In the final reading of the signs,
it is our turn, we
who know not how
we arrived, less what to do:
but we may choose the
manner in which the
next generation will blame us:
let them hate us
for trying, even if it were
for a hopeless quest.
We may save our souls, yet.