It's true, what they say:
Time turns back
In dreamland.

Hair, somehow
Thickening,

Beard,
Oddly thinning,

Belly
Obscured handily
By a small, thatched pillow.

The man

Looks clumsily
Like his father:

They share the same
Squashed nose.

But
His breaths,
They reflect not

The heavy-handed heft
Of his ancestral chest
Rising deeply,

But rather the lighter airs
Of a simpler time

Resting gently
On his eyelids.

Day
Crisscrosses
With night,

Somehow manages
To touch the other's hand
Even if
One is allergic
To the heat
And the other,
A fear of the dark.

There's a striking
Balance in the
Muted gray
Of the groggy sky—
A scenery
Not very much unlike
That
Of a slumbering owl
And a waking wren,

One creature
In cahoots
With the darkness
And the other
Perhaps too
With light.

Both,
Sing very
Different songs—yet
Both
Seem to arrive
At the same purpose:

Which is to see
What the other
Really is made of
Beyond the light
And shroud—

Touch maybe even
Forbidden wings and
Quietly
Sing some more;

In this habitat
Of shadows
They—we—will not be bothered.

So sing, wren,
Your truest of songs:

"Good morning,
"Good morning,
"The day is
"But coming,"

So sing, owl,
Your truest of songs:

"Good evening,
"Good evening,
"The night is
"But leaving."

And so now kiss, night,
The plodding day.