mist hovers warm
as a dove’s swollen breast
til all I can see
of the morning
are lights I imagined
a lantern still burns
as reason retreating
from a place
long ago

clipped to the edges
of a solace remembered
just twenty nine steps
past the gate
a ribbon is wed
by orchid to cedar
and left a reminder
to the path
that you know

a way undecided
by the passing of days
nights folded softly
to prayer
ten thousand mornings
a lifetime or more
are held to forever
in this sweet
afterglow

. . .