The Dream Cave

Nelson sun, sea, bush, sand,

diamond-starred water, gannet lullaby,

a small boy, by pointed cave mouth,

black store of genitor love, asleep,

fist uncurled, hardly breathing.

Might he be wandering free

in a sky of everything,

of princely dominion, of quilted peace,

with Max and the Maxi Monsters,

a frisk of unicorn foals, a swirl

of silver herons. There he lies encradled,

gloved by the transparent breeze.

An artist’s scene of brightness,

infant, and triangular maw of dark --

benign entrance to the riddle of our selves,

features both known and strange, all smiling –

as we smile at the child’s still face,

at the look of what we have been,

before we grew and knew.