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THEY OFTEN CROSS BY NIGHT
Scott Souza
After the storm came the lingering innocence of spring rain.
Staccato lightning marched across the hill;
wispy gray clouds rolled gently;
mist fell on the yellow raincoat of a child lost
among the earthbound clouds.
At the stream the child reached out
to let the swift flow sieve through outstretched fingers.
That night many touched the stream.
at all the crossing points thronging ranks of arms reached
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 misery. 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 of visions,
a place where the twilight echoes of dreams are heard.
I heard their calls bounce back from wandering figures,
as from a myriad of sterile canyons.
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 was the ghost who walked on water;
I and the torrent were one, and I became the dream.
Then one-by-one the yearners fled to fields
beyond the mists that gather at 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 by night and wonder why I linger.
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