up from luminous dream,
in the soft hours
of deep night's thrall
suddenly discovering
I am in
          our small corridor,
no longer
                  a narrow hall
for now, to my wonder
it is stretched into
milky-way cathedral
walls robed in
flashes of
     lit-up nostalgia
                 on black
I float, eyes wide
mind open, a-light
naked skin splashed in
the cool nocturnal breath
and before me,
    a vast gallery
          of memories:
faces in frames,
some long gone
some now turned from
round baby cheeks into
vibrant adolescent beauty
delicate curls on toddlers
now muscular,
                fire-talking angels
ancestors who I never knew
but who I am named for
stare in sepia elegance
their eyes
piercing my soul
I am a warrioress
clothed in memories'
sub-conscious fabric
my weapons,
the love
that backs me up
so full it oozes out
            from the ether
spews from geysers
soaks up through
                      the earth
stains beaten feet
my fingers feel it
in strokes of
wind-whipped canticles
generations standing
behind me,
before me
ready to rise
holding staffs
live epitaphs
ready to split the rock

My center is lit up in
past and present voices
                 echoing prayers
I feel them in my
            heart-tunnels,
                     reverberating
they turn
future ponderings
into endless possibilities
I let them all in,
absorbing strength
into deep tissue
and the hell in my spine
opens its scars
like
    flowers of
               the
                  night