It's at the wink of the eyes,
The sleep sliped out,
Awake to the world,
To wander and to lose.

At the flutter of the eyes,
You tried to beckon,
The sleep lost,
With dreamy halves.

You tried to erase,
The deep marks etched,
You tried to shut,
The brunts thrown.

At the blink of your eye,
Slowly the sleep seeps in,
Asleep to the world,
Awake to your mind.

Oh, he still mounts up for his seasonal ride
Through Irving’s bucolic corner of the Hudson Valley,
Chasing some suitably harried jogger
On a poster promoting some 5K race,
Or perhaps pictured astride his horse,
Tuxedo-clad, severed visage winking outrageously
In an advertisement for a charity evening
Taking place at some grand former estate
With an equally grand view of the river.
He is less conspicuous in that part of the village
Which is, say, west of Broadway and south of Beekman,
Where the neon signs in the bars tout Corona and Dos Equis,
And the argot on the sidewalks and street corners
Is not the Dutch of the Van Brunts and Van Tassels,
But every bit as Greek to their descendants
Who own the homes with expansive flora and fauna
Mowed and pruned by the denizens of the neighborhood,
Or work in the Mid-town office towers they scrub and shine.
(Not that they come to that part of town anyway, mind you;
They fail to see the rustic charm of the vague fear
Of something or someone hurtling toward them from behind.)