08-07-2011, 06:17 AM
We've always belonged here.
Anyone who's ever lived
will one day see these frame houses,
this old saloon, the creaking sign,
the yellow plains which cradle them,
more flat than undisturbed water.
You could watch someone walk a month,
twelve miles beyond the town,
until the dot becomes too small,
and they appear on the sidewalk again.
I will eat the last white sweet
and see you by the tavern door.
But I am terrified of sleep.
How will I know the path from rest
to eternal consciousness?
What if I grow lost?
Is nirvana's driveway long,
does it wind through trees;
are there stars between the earth
and the afterlife?
Perhaps I'm naive to assume the final stop
is such a place, a quaint old town
with sand and sun. Perhaps when we awake from death
a high window depicts four walls, on the other side
just light, endlessness you cannot reach.
Anyone who's ever lived
will one day see these frame houses,
this old saloon, the creaking sign,
the yellow plains which cradle them,
more flat than undisturbed water.
You could watch someone walk a month,
twelve miles beyond the town,
until the dot becomes too small,
and they appear on the sidewalk again.
I will eat the last white sweet
and see you by the tavern door.
But I am terrified of sleep.
How will I know the path from rest
to eternal consciousness?
What if I grow lost?
Is nirvana's driveway long,
does it wind through trees;
are there stars between the earth
and the afterlife?
Perhaps I'm naive to assume the final stop
is such a place, a quaint old town
with sand and sun. Perhaps when we awake from death
a high window depicts four walls, on the other side
just light, endlessness you cannot reach.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe