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THEY OFTEN CROSS AT NIGHT
Scott Souza, 1995
After the storm came the lingering innocence of spring rain.
Staccato lightning flashes marched away across the hill;
Wispy gray clouds rolled gently;
Mist fell quietly on the yellow raincoat of a child lost among the earthbound clouds.
At the stream the child reached out
To let the swift elixir flow through outstretched fingers.
That night many touched the stream.
At all the crossing points I saw thronging ranks of arms reach deep in ruined waters
To find the child beneath the brown confusion.
At the last hoping place that bridged the stream, I too felt the water on my sleeve.
We groped but only felt the pain.
We burst like desert seed pods touched by the rains of spring.
From each broken pod the stream washed out an only child - -
An only child from each to populate the stream,
And so it became an Amazon torrent of visions,
And a place where the twilight echoes of dreams are heard.
I heard their call bounce back from wandering fingers
as from a myriad of sterile canyons.
So I surrendered to the pain of germination -- to the reverberations and the visions --
The outline of a smile, a tangled shoestring wrapped in clover,
a hand filled with butterflies - -
I touched our yesterdays and hopes that shouldn't be there;
And I became the fertile land beside the stream;
I am the ghost who walks on water;
I and the torrent are one,
And I became the dream.
Then one-by-one the yearners fled to healing lies
beyond the mists that lie beneath the bridge.
They hide in sunshine from the dreams and things they must not touch.
But drawn by the hidden threads we left there in the stream,
They often cross at night and wonder why I linger.
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