House Made of Pollen

by Carolyn Dunn

i.

the stars on the highway

litter the end of the world

with their shine, a stop

along the haze that blurs

vision and ceremony.

songs are spoken

aloud in the hopes that the chant

will take up the cause

on the road to heaven.

how can we recount

songs sung for others

when grief gets in our way?

is it a memory – fleeting, tenuous

like the map of stars

floating between us as we gaze

skyward

wishing the road between worlds

would clear?

ii.

blue is the color of the moment,

fine, tempered

with just a touch of sky

and of sorrow,

not a sadness that while

fleeting

takes possession of the soul

at midnight,

but a deep,

clear, resonant grief

sung into place

long before

we dreamt it,

swallowed and reborn

to become another sky.

iii.

the unfolding

of the world

occurs in the blink

of an eye, a breath

on a day full of sunlight

like so many other.

layer upon layer of spinning dust

ash

and ice sparkling.

hidden in the blue horse

which heralds the dawn.

like that thunderclap

hoof silent, unseen,

but known so well

as to become

like breath and

beauty,

it can swallow one whole

in that quiet moment

between dusk

and dawn,

taking up residence

in the hinterlands

of the hidden universe,

covered in blue

and desperate

to be freed.