It’s the strangest thing to be awake
as this hour breaks and then recedes,
a wave of purple ebbing
on a dark brown shore,
like blood drying on the skin
around a wound, a healing
almost hurting me.

Even as I watch the colors
change I’m not sure I believe
that depths so dark
can clear and shine and wash
the sand clean as a virgin
blushing as she lets her last defense
fall gently to the floor.

It is such a demonstration
of what happens when I’m dreaming,
of the sweeping changes I’ve been launching.
It is all that I can do
to hold the tears in place,
behind my eyes.

I’ve been so unconscious,
so ensconced in opaque sleep
I failed to see the bronze horizon
stretching past my shoulder
or the miracle of parting mists,
the shrinking violet that leaves
the land and sky and sea
a brilliant, open plain,
white and blue and green.