It is he alone that accepts the task and rises from my bed at night
To take my place in daring dreams and do what I could not intend
Only through his lucid eyes will I retrieve a glance beyond…
And soon depart from my own safety, doomed to fill his fearless steps
Down to twisting caverns lit by geode gardens strangely bright
Through spider web complexity and doubtful depths of dragon sleep
Where fumes of steaming lava spring invade a grotto’s dusty lungs
And skulls of long forgotten creatures break down into transient powders
Oily black abandoned vaults that never know the changing months
Strangers to the wind-swept fields, the pollen breeze and orchid scent
Stripped of the speech of gurgling streams, bickering birds and pounding rain
Miles below the subtleties and pleasures of a rural Eden
A mockery of the wild horse’s spacious and unfettered range
Daunting in its bold dimensions, deep and dark instead of wide
Humid like a bottled storm, precluding that which reeks of death
A death that guards decaying structures built by men who fell in progress
Pausing on a torch-lit step, I close my eyes and concentrate
On distant comely woodland vistas stolen from some antique painting
Cardinals yield a flash of red, flamboyant over virgin snow
A glimpse of evanescent mildness missed as though a mother’s face
Another breath resumes the trek through a transromantic underworld
Further down a flickering stairwell plagued with crudely hinting symbols
Travelers reap no sane rewards from such a bleak nocturnal outing
What impending natural force allures me from the sun’s caress?
The one that steals my form for brash intentions has survived the night
Courageous in the spaces where my waking self would cringe in terror
Fleeing through the morning air as I return to sweaty sheets
Waiting for my consciousness to take another deadly fall
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