Once Again

Once again.

The night grows dense and sharp
among the ailing bell towers that
play on through so many nights of forgetting.

There is a lament suspended in space
that divides the vast universe
that builds my many selves.

I am sorry it cannot
not be, and yet it loves being alive, and
the moon shines, and
tears slide their bittersweet taste into what is real.

Once again.

The ship migrates
from ocean to settle on land and
become a serenely barren thing.

A wandering journey that
must be the perfect mirror of
so many absences that, remade, build our souls.

Once again.

There is no silence that
withstands the monotonous crackle of bonfires,
night fires that must be—only
withered echoes of those haunted, endless mists
from which he loves to be more God and less intention.

Again, it rains: days, weeks, years...
and my hands keep
emerging from nowhere to become this:
illusions of peace, uncertain nights.