Your grave must be your bed, <br />though I never thought of it that way before; <br />we who walk above, while you are embedded <br />in sandy soil and clay, snaking roots, <br />all the rocks and debris of land. <br /> <br />You're sleeping in earth just above bedrock, <br />over long aeons shifting slightly in your sleep, <br />like a dried flower invisibly redefines its contours, <br />the multi-colored mold encircling like a crown, <br />where a creeping, uneven darkness outlines you, <br />once heavily pressed against white satin. <br /> <br />All our patterings are muffled nothings down beneath; <br />the exclamations, cries, murmurs, whispers- <br />only the lawnmower capable of breaking the rigid silence, <br />or sometimes a distant thunder <br />that shudders the ground around the ones sleeping. <br /> <br />You lie still in your dream, locked-in, <br />unknowing that there was never an awakening, <br />or that you lie inside the sweating tomb, <br />or whether or not there is headstone, plate or brass urn <br />to mark your place in this unknown city. <br /> <br />And who stands above at times, or who never comes- <br />these are things that can never concern you, because dreams <br />are all you know now, softly nestled there where grief and pain, <br />age and regret can never reach you: safe in your forever dream.<br /><br />Patti Masterman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/safe-in-your-forever-dream/
