the big journey

louis aston knight view of a chateau

i have often dreamed of a life

in which i

am borne from place to place

inside the soft body of a river

~

passing through the waving velvet fingers

of silt-borne grasses

the current-whorled

pale-green wool of the river

knits itself around me until

emerging into the silken transparency

of a slow-falling lilac dusk

i draw in my first sweet breath

and watch

a nightingale's song spread gold and silver threads

across the violet expanse

*

this must be the floweriest place

that earth allows; the queenly face

of the proud mansion borrows grace for grace

italicized words excerpted from edmund blunden's "vlamertinghe passing the chateau"