Dawn, Dusk

(On the Northcote again) the only sleeping accommodation for junior officers was the cabin floor; and the cabin was, at once, dining room, lounge, and card room, it was impossible to get to bed until a late hour, only to be routed very early in the morning by the boat's employees...the hurricane deck was the most satisfactory bunk of the trip, except that the sun rose rather early in the morning.

From the water
Days are getting longer; the bleak and frigid
pause
before dawn
less cold, less
hard.

I was kept up too late
by the men gambling, laughing,
playing cards.

My eyes half-closed on the hurricane deck,
I imagine myself at sea. The waving grasslands
beyond the banks could be ocean, not desolate
prairie.

The white half-light between four and five
interrupts my dreams. But worth it to see
the sun birth at dawn, colour bursting crazyquilt
the night's dark
seams.

* * *
From the bushes
The old men said for us younger ones
to flee to the banks, beyond range,
while they bought us all some time.

My mistake: to look back.

Macabre jig danced at the end of a rope
behind a slapped and galloping horse:
this is what I see in the blue half-light at dusk.

Only a month past, I fell asleep dreaming
Of my dark-haired love, our plans to be married
summer, next. I have only seen her dead brother these past days,

cannot find my family or hers. Strange
shapes settle in the horizon as twilight
deepens to night. As sunset fades I find I'm straining, searching for

The missed step that twitches me awake
just as I'm falling into a dreamless sleep
on the still trembling earth.

My life: an unstrung fiddle, a loosened bow.