Take Time by the Hand

While sunlight touches lightly
a room almost remembered where
the dark lies heavy on her lips

she skips through the past
and dreams of the future
as though it were gone.

She sets new traps for ancient
dreams, preserving the present
although it’s a lie—like Monet

pinching off green for a winter-
veined landscape where everything
floats in the lake of his eye. She pours

sand into clocks until years
turn inward to sunburned summers
where childhood frisks.

With the long sleep still
light years away, she rises to morning’s
extravagance, air wrapped in silk

abundance of sky and perched
like a cock on a dung hill
she’s crowing the morning.


Ruth Daigon | Mudlark No. 25
Contents | All the Old Dreams