When the mist rose,
fragrant painting the horizon red,
radiant in the evening sun,
emerged of roses a bed;
And we walk on
        hand in hand
                   by a lotus pond
                           in some sapient
                                 distant land.
The chorus of the stars,
hymn
to a limitless vast,
the vistas
that we held in those palms;
Little taps nimble on the roof tiles
the noon-song of the after-rain
drip-dripping sky.
It   was   I    then, and -
you,        as         you       are        now.
Tither have        you       gone hiding?
Waiting at the edge of the platform,
last siren of the day,
dying into the night
rattling in the rails,
echoing in my soul;
Trudge
            now    long
to the aboveground
late bus, hedgewalking
past the cacti
in the garden next door;
flowered, thorn-bushes then
smirks
now the desert rose
crowned King
dew-frozen    of the hour dim