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