Windows and Gold-Dust Rooms
©January 21st, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Little windows into bygone minds break
Little squares of old light in my own.
I slip through, tripping lightly
A quicksilver imp,
Curious, insatiable,
Sideways, slideways,
Just to look around.
People lived in these spaces,
Transparent, luminous, imagined.
People spoke of gladness and grief,
Moving like figures on a tapestry
As their makers wove tales, peopling
An already crowded and reality-cracked world.
None of them real, just fevered conjurations
Of older minds from other times.
A strange stasis holds me in thrall
As I stumble through these gold-dusted rooms
And gaze around, and take in their words.
Tomorrow, I shall move back
Sideways and slidewise, climbing back
Through one of those windows
Into my own, real, magic world.
I shall rearrange reality,
I shall trim the edges,
And carry water
To quench another thirst.
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