Windows

In March, when the shadows are long, I am walking

Down the streets of the city I knew long ago,

And see as in dreams empty windows there staring

As if to draw the soul into their darkness,

And imagine a figure sometimes is appearing

From the other side of the thin veil of the day,

Or the depths of some dark pool under the psyche

Where all of our dreams and memories sleep.

And I dare not even to look for too long,

But even less bear all the bright world around me,

Dingy and paltry and false its belief

In the images floating on its moving surface.

The birds chirp a song now of urgent creation,

The soft, warm winds breathe a new life in all things,

From somewhere beyond where all of this world

Has long vanished or perhaps is never to be.

And those figures from dark windows silently peering,

Are perhaps spirits of my own past soul,

Calling to me in this time as if asking

What purpose it all was if but an illusion?

But other souls walk down the streets of their dreams

Past the windows that beckon into that same world,

And I feel them as they wander warily by,

And all of their fear and mysterious urge--

And wonder if I am already a spirit

That appears for a moment in the darkness staring

From some other window in some other dream.

April, 2018

Image courtesy of James Chamberlain

Daniel is a poet living in Houston, Texas. He has spent much of his life fighting for the ideals of classical culture and poetry. His latest volume of poems is entitled Places the Soul Goes.