Winner: Poem of the Week: September 11, 2005
Eyes
by the quiet poet
For one hushed moment, my eyes opened;
opened like flood-gates, swift and relentless.
I saw aeons dealt before me;
drifting like deadwood on black waves.
The heavens rolled back in their wake,
as if the gods themselves feared death.
My eyes burned like smoldering ash;
slow, drawn out and terrible.
Birds descended from the fullness,
their flight like paper cranes.
They sang a silent song for the dead,
carrying souls in vellum scrolls.
My eyes now sank beneath the tide;
cold and dead as a winter moon.
With my sleeping mind I saw a tree;
hacked and shaped into some crooked form.
Its blood-stained, gnarled braches knew;
Knew the peace I had now received.
