Michael Axtell
VISION
Glass caravel, unbreakable and clear,
contrived to sail the pearled ubiquity,
horizon-straightening and perfect sea:
your mooring is a fine-hewn grey stone pier.
Beneath the rugged cliffs the beach is long,
beneath the windmill with the searching light
from which the amply terraced gardened flight
of stairs descends for journeyings in song.
The pier is low and unprotected, storm
and enemy unknown, and silken sails
upon the ship as in the childish tales
to catch refreshing winds blown soft and warm.
The passengers get on with placid hearts
and conversation, bound for distant parts.
SCENE
The streets are lined with lotuses of light
and vehicles like schools of fish beneath proceed,
till ruby lures divide their path
and they stop and stare at them in the night.
I dreamt the clouds of morning hovered low
like dragons from the eldritch days of T'ang,
and they inquired with emerld eyes and flooding
from their open curled-lip jaws came the snow.
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