I dreamed us in a Baroque city
strolling a maze of empty streets.
Worn satin-smooth, the stones
gleamed in emerging moonlight.
We discussed a piece of music,
how its sober bass line underlay
a descant spun to tinkle
high above it, a spider’s filaments,
silken and suspended,
unperceived until
a light ray strays
and there it is, before your face,
a whole mandala.
You understood exactly,
so a peony appeared,
the size of a cantaloupe,
voluptuous and fragrant.
Soft as its fainting petals, your hand
touched my cheek, then floated off,
pointing to the sky
where newly fallen night
revealed the brilliance of three stars
inching over ancient ramparts.
We hushed and watched the trio climb.
Had they been high in the inky sky, there would be
no earthly register to measure
their ascent, no reason for the eye
to mark their presence
or their passage.
Close as the stars were to an edge,
we could see them move
right now before they merged
into a spangled velvet
vast as no beginning,
as will we, perhaps, at our ending.