Ghosts

Who sleeps in the star-strewn bed in the sunlit room in the house on the high hill?

Who curls in a ball, deep, deep asleep between clean sheets, and cannot be waked?

She is away,

Away

Where fear is dead and the dark a friend -

Life safe and predictable, and she is free.

Where there are no sharp edges, only bellbirds ring, and a white cat purrs on a pillow.

She plunges so deep all her cares are drowned.

While she floats, drugged by sleep, in buttery sheets, rocked by the wind.


When hypnos flees who stirs, and stretches, breaks the ghostly web?

Finds her inner grown-up and rises, feeds the cat, waters the plants and returns to curl, to shrink, to sleep again.

In a star-strewn bed, a feather pillow, with some books and a cat for company.

The one who sleeps gets smaller and more tenuous every day.

If i find her before she disappears i'll send her on her way.

Away, away

With clean sheets, a well-fed cat, and a starry blanket

And though i'll miss her, i will let her sleep

her life away

Three-in-the-morning questions

does a butterfly ever want to return to the safety of the cocoon?

are the moths knocking on the window really looking for the moon?

why do cold-night stars look like you could get a fingernail under them and pick them off the sky like a cat-thief, while on warmer nights they are a firmly secured window display at a jeweller?

what is that noise in the background, under the lonely moon, when all sleeps - a sound like frozen grasshoppers, like celestial white-noise, like a high-pitched respirator?

'surrender to the sky your heart of anger' - why is the night sky more receptive, less likely to spit anger back in your face?

will the sickle moon ever slash open the sky?

when the moon falls from the sky will it be full, or new?

does the snore of a sleeping husband create a tornado far from here?

why did I have coffee after nightfall?