The subject of death came to plague my thoughts at a very early age, probably around four or five. And so I spent the greater part of my childhood in livid terror of death. The fault could be my father’s, but there’s no real telling. It’s possible this fear rode a thread of spirit into my manifest being from some place, time, or realm before.
I vaguely recall asking my father what happens after we die, probably as a five year old, and he proceeded to explain to me with all the concrete believability that only one’s hallowed father could possess, that it all just ends, that it’s like going to sleep and never waking up again. He was an atheist. For some reason this thought terrified me more, at the time, than the worst possible hells the Catholics could think up for my young brain.
Yet, as an adult… Where does time go when we sleep, between the dreams. It seems to me that there truly is an aspect of our being that is beyond the touch of time, and that we only realize it, unconsciously, in the depths of sleep.
It was as I pondered such thoughts when I sat down to write this ghazal.
Sleep
Who can remember their race between dreams?
Nothing ever holds its pace between dreams.
A mighty river thunders on its way,
An endless quest for the place between dreams.
Though predators fiercely hunt for your soul,
Know they can never give chase between dreams.
Cloudscapes of splendor vanish in the wind;
Their existence bears no trace between dreams.
This depthless farness mid the burning stars
Is but the motionless space between dreams.
Light ventures through and beyond the abyss,
Yet will never show its face between dreams.
Our pains and sorrows gather fold on fold,
But who can carry their case between dreams?
Your freedom flutters far in flight, Zahhar,
For limitless is the grace between dreams.
This is my 45th ghazal.
Publication History:
The Ghazal Page (web-based) — June 2002
