REVERSE CREATION

Cyril Paul, 1998

What a dream I had

I saw Gamaliel coming towards me

A page of the book of LIFE in his hand

As I tossed and turned in my dream

Measures of weights pulling at my heart strings

The rhythm of my life pressed to a snail’s pace

I was stranded on a desert island

Throat thirsty, forlorn, half-witted, famished

Lying on the hot, desert sand

An apparition shrouded in a flowing white garment

Masked with a full flowing head of silver

And beard to match

Moving dreamlike in measured thread

It moved towards me, but as it appeared

This fearsome figure, a colossal image of Osmandias

With feet of clay, headless, stood before me

At his feet was an inscription chiseled

In a language I could not understand.

Pondering as I lay there, this Omen, this apparition

The wind, the sound of Silence cried out

“You are fishing without bait! Fool!

You are a Don Quixote chasing the wind

You are a fragrant rose in a desert storm

You are Charles Darney searching persistently

Searching deep into an empty wine bottle

You are seeking love with an empty heart in the wrong places.

You are Christopher Columbus heading for the dark abyss.”

Frightened out of my wits

Feeling myself free-falling, drenched with sweat, I AWOKE

I went to my window.  I saw the sun rising from the West

Birthing a new dawn in reverse creation.