In Their Sleep

When I see them
In their humble slumber,
tired poets, sunken
deep in supple sullen rhyme
cheek and chin a-kindle
in the offing distant hills
rolling over yellow poppies
rich in color of their lives,
eyes and lashes like a drawing
model for tomorrow’s dawn.
I’m lost to know my own hearts calling
admiring these travelers passing
dreamers drifting, sailing time
each his own a stated ship
his Xanadu to claim,
saluting all the crowds of wanderers
walking vacant in their sleep.
When I see their hands are resting
lips defenseless to desire
on soft green meadow milky way
fingers long for pencil writing
laying gently on the grass
like a fragile heirloom treasure
safe on pillows kept to please.
I wish to bend and bear them
press into their sinuous lips,
to lift the hand that guides the poet,
caress the sleeping finger tips,
braise them gently cross my cheek,
never telling like a painting
careful not to wake them
beyond dreams gate and heaven’s edge
where death and peace collide,
cocooned in capsule beauty locked
where I sit gazing in.