by John Haworth
An old man dances at the edge of dreams.
He wavers like a mirage
in a land of sand and sun.
A horse runs atop the fabric of reality.
Storm clouds billow in its wake,
the promise of rain.
Wind whips mane and tail
while sweat sweetly soaks flank and flesh.
The horse chokes on its bit and slows.
The old man grabs hold the reins.
His dark face is weathered and dry
as the desert in which he resides.
He calms the equine with a smile
and slow, gentle strokes.
“Where is your rider?”
He whispers in the horse’s ear.
Wings erupt from its back
and the horse is no longer a horse,
but a Sandhill crane.
The crane takes flight,
singing mournful songs of life
and death: the sounds of eternity.
The crane flies into the storm.
Lightning strikes.
The crane turns to sand falling
through an hourglass.
A child plays with time
and turns the hourglass over and over
until time shatters and the sand spills
out onto the grass. The broken glass
startles a snake from the shade.
The snake is consuming a smaller snake,
a tail protrudes between fangs.
The old man walks from the trees.
He points to the snakes and says to the child,
“Remember.”
A crane lands on his outstretched hand
and drops something into his palm.
He winks and is gone.
The child gives pursuit up endless stairs,
but the stairs are too steep.
The child falls until he is eye level
with the stars. Light is reflected in his eyes.
Above him a horse is running.
The child, now grown,
awakens with a start
and writes this down.
