when you are young

when you are young
and full of poetry

when time is but
a fancy and death
an ironic inspiration


when idle moments
pass into idle years

and you are tested with
a sea of yesterdays


you will sit
and you will wonder

at how everything
that
is

now was

last night

i awoke last
night, 3am

stomach hurt
burned a little
too

went to the fridge
drank a few mouth
fulls of milk right
from the carton

shuffled back
to bed

wide awake now

my white cat curled
up tight on my bedspread
glowed subtly in the
faint streaming light
from the window

crawled in bed
trying not to
distupt the cat's slumber

i lay there
mind going
too fast for
my own good

the creeping fear
of uncertainty clawed
at my subconsciousness

the rednumbered digital
clock stared at me
reproving

rolled over on my right side
facing the wall

prayed

i think
hoping to fall a sleep

my stomach
burned a little

bunched the
pillows around my

head

squeezed my eyes & willed
sleep to come--

it played coy

a muffled throat mew told me
to settle down

i tried

sleep played
hard to get

in an instant

part i
in an instant a sleepy town
is swept into a muddy sea

tens of thousands of quiet
disasters unfolding into a scream

part ii
6000 miles away
across a hundred restless seas
unexplored mountains
and terrains of the unforgotten
and unfulfilled

a man smiles as his grand
daughter takes the first of many steps

part iii
he wept when they arrived

a story of hope, the newspaper said,
notwithstanding the empty shirt
in his trembling hands
(where once his wife had been)

part iv
later, when the last of the
candles shuddered under
his grandson's breath

the man struggles
to stand

and walk away