Since there is little else to convince me that time moves forward
but the usual bright arcs and descents of sunlight, I am going back
to the age of dragons, the great age of stumbling into strange forests
where there are reports of knights who wield enchanted swords
that sing into the fire-bellies of fierce, gigantic beasts
and sightings of sorcerers in sudden castles looking out from towers,
scooping magic dusts from passing clouds. I wonder now,
turning the lights off and yielding to the older code of sleep,
how the years have managed to keep such fictions. I'm thinking
of uprooted trees and the elaborate paperwork. Or earlier deeds:
a young, dreamy-eyed scribe moving away from the din of medieval ballads
by the campfire into the woods, knocking quietly on the branches
and leaves. The next day, they will say he simply and understandably
lost his way. For that was also a time of faith; his companions believed
in disappearances. Tomorrow, in honor of these ancient convictions,
I will leave for some other place, somewhere with canopy and undergrowth
and many dark holes to sleep in. And I will find that man: stirring
and yawning and generally just scribbling about in that old morning
like nothing in the world could ever possibly change.
