In surrendering to sleep
the whole of life seems possible
and everything that will come tomorrow
is acceptable
since it can wait.

There in the fuzzy distance
things that will happen day by day
appear as they would to some vaster being
whose breath is the circle of seasons
and whose pain is the cracking ice
giving way to the water’s coaxing.

I give up trying to make it mean
something now.

Something I am dimly aware of being
drifts from beneath my covers
and flows through the local rivers.

It is naked as a fish,
so naked as to not be embarrassed
by other dreaming passers-by.