The dharma at last
longdead in his dream the boys leap
one by one over the cliff into the wild splash
& the singing current—the tow pulling them
down into green dark & silt where the sunken
trees fell & were pinned as well, great black
branches looming up in the murk, fish tearing
the guts of whitened & bloated corpses as
their eyes stared, marbled spheres like moons
glowing in the dark. by night, the water clears, the
shadow moon reflects off the pale carcasses—
& he is awake, panting, the moon shining
thru his midnight window. he hears the voices of
thousands singing & weeping as police line up
& swat batons swat batons swat batons & march
march march into the now-screaming singers,
their ranks breaking—the one-eyed bard chanting
for calm—the ranks all fled, he left alone to sweat on
a factory floor, in a madhouse swabbing urinals. now
the dreams are all moonlit, no destination
& yet this weary traveler sings in his passing
steps, careless in the theatre of stars where the dead
walk with him daily, nightly, old companions
urging him to rest as even days grow darker,
the news ever more ominous. he must consider
the sleek craft of his final voyages, the turns in his
last river, the song he will compose to take him
beyond his last lay to sing in dreams where
his companions fled, to learn to walk among
the living like a shadow in the daylight of
their certainties, waiting for them to leap at last.