For three days I had wasted
in drunken stupor, sleep-induced,
unable to form whole words,
interaction fully reduced
to irrational alarm.
To world of dreams again seduced,
I was gone, unreachable;
logic, sensibilities, loosed.

Without warning I awoke,
speechless still but understanding,
singed with meaning, branded by truth.
Teacher in life demanding
had come from beyond to show me
what lies beneath, what’s happening,
that has disturbed my soul and
left heart in shock, mind splintering.

You: teacher, brother, father,
friend, lover, mother, guardian,
you who left without goodbye
five years since, you my champion
chose me in my disrepair
to lift to places halcyon,
to lay me in feathered nest
and sing of a resurrection.

Awake again to the now,
I ponder meaning of the then.
What to do with the knowledge?
What to offer women and men
suffering, longing, sleeping?
Might I find feathered nest of wren
to lay my burdens in and
sing sweet song of hope again?