When night finally concedes,
and departs for the horizon
dragging off my dreams
and pulling its shadow behind it
into a thickening fog, a scrim
that hides the dawn’s arrival,
I realize what has been lost.
I have tried to grasp dreams
as they recede but it is grasping
limpid mercury that obeys no
direction or request save that
of gravity, and that reluctantly.
They will be replaced, as day
will be replaced by a new night,
but their loss is no less real
even if they defy mourning
for the dawn demands attention
and I am helpless to oppose it.