At night,

when silence wraps the house

words hover over me and

I must set them down –

or they will drift away.

For slumber steals

those first thought words,

the best,

the poignant.

Ignored they seldom survive.

I do not understand this.

The theme persists

but those precious drops

from the thought spring

that I share, dry up.

Leaving only the tantalizing ghosts

of unwritten syllables.

 

 

David Garlick, Lopez Island, Washington, September 1996