—a bubble, a skepticism, a sleep that sleeps
   the somnambulist stairs, the slumber that cannot
        be shaken from eyes, a child with a magic wand, those dreams
    of a life, of a life, those dreams, the
ring-necked dove in the crabapple tree, & the wind, those dreams—

—& the wind so strong it blows petals off branches,
     a pink so pale it has no name but in the dream, a petal
          no larger than a sequin, a bee’s skullcap, a single letter’s veil,
    naked aleph holds the mystery of her breath safe hidden
in the book of simultaneity, the muon moves through me—

—as if I wasn’t there, & so it moves through the mountain,
     through the dove, & so moves the moon, through me as if
          there was no me, just a syllable of the eternal If,
     & for a while it is true, the dove in the crabapple blossoms
is the moon in dawn clouds, & the moon wears an obsidian necklace—

—or is it a ribbon of black silk? A quiet morning of alternates.
     A particle, a wave, both—but never at the same time.
          & the wind will blow the clouds away later 
     replaced by other clouds, seasons of other blossoms,
other doves. First there was the Word, and the Word was—

—many words followed, the moon moves over the mountains,
     the dove flies from the tree, where do we find ourselves
           asks the essay, and the essay says, on a stair,
     the extremes of which we cannot see, apprentice to the sun
or student of the primary stone, the bedrock pelvis, that bone—

—& the way up and the way down are one, logic, ratio, confession
     of debt in court of law, in the court of universal laws, that I
         have hidden inside myself as a body hides in a crypt,
     that I want to come out, guilty as charged, sentenced to a life

of sunlight falling on me as it falls on every helpless thing—

—logic, ratio, confession, all are translation of that same word
     Word, first there was the Word, and the Word was
          a saying not a said, a kind of clearing, the threshing
     ground, the agon ring, a gate without a door, an infinite hut,
the dove wears a necklace with a silver pendant moon—

—it is so hard to know what is true, true in the dream, what
     translates from the inner gloom to the general doom,
          adams and atoms, top, bottom, up, down, charm, &
     strange, how strange it is, this good luck, this this-ness of
the world, the green grass pierces the trace of spring snow—

—in the dream’s bubble
          the man who is asleep is also
at work in the world—