Something pulses beneath my bed, with a throaty song
that lulls my aching head. A heartbeat of strings pulled by fingers
accustomed to weaving; Loom Makers scrying the far futures
with each gentle drumming pluck.

Along the riverbank my dreams drag me,
to catch up with the winters that I have sat through
without so much as dropping a penny into the gods’ donation box.
I am thirsty and fraught

with faes and winds and smoky harts, waking their hinds
with flowery gifts, wild sprites flirting with my spirit.

Days hover, and lowly drift, as the fog that shall not lift
until he has found what was lost, fallen
out his lap, so I keep this coffee cup
full and sugary, until his doggy body gives up.

I want to love again is what I think the music is telling me.
I want to remember men and women
not as antique furniture with sheets covering them

but as young saplings breaking through my garden bed,
pushing out the tiny buds to cement this homestead
as their church, as their birth and burial grounds;

I am ready for the sound of laughter, some gasps, some rows,
cool eyes rising to look at me.