Clairvoyance

I do not wish to close my eyes. Not here—
Not with the mirrors of rainclouds gathered
Beneath my toes, nor with you beside me
Trailing in the wake of unspoken journeys.

There is so much here I dare not miss:
The hunger of roads, as it swallows,
Inch by inch, the crafted distances of dreams;
Portents of dust and pilgrim stones;
The muddied footprints we leave behind
Recollecting ancient wanderings.

Everything yields itself to apparition.
And I, moving within the torments of space
Thus proclaim sublimest title:
Spectator of phantoms.

Yet hereupon, vision falters.
Among the shadows of our weary limbs
Light proceeds, forlorn, to its gentle dying.
We took to blindness long before we built
These cryptic avenues and pathways of our minds.

Unseeing, it is the patience of highways
That moves me to consume the horizon.
Now I bow my head and search for maps
Etched upon these invisible paths we tread.

Sight begins here, always, where darkness is steepest.