at the first touch
I
had leaped
back as though they meant
me harm, but their soft
palms calmed me and
I
slept.
Now,
I
won't
~leep.
Millions
will, and someone must keep
watch over the night and later
welcome the first gray light
that leaks from nowhere
and fills the empty spaces until
at IClst a high window flashes
with a ray of sunlight. Once,
I
slept along with all the others
and wakened to a glass of water,
bread, and steaming porridge.
Once
I
was a young man, wide
across the back, thick handed,
straining into my heavy clothes,
my gloves, my boots, a man
masked against the burning metals
that were the earth. But now
I
am light, perhaps the spirit
of those
I'll
never know, uncertain,
but singing fully into the fire.
