After a Late Night, Waiting

Again, that rim before sleep: 
            I tried to pause there—listened 
to the mantle clock, the distant 
            sprung rhythm of a dog barking, 
and a faint electrical hum 
            no one else in my family can hear. 
An aura of dizzy strings 
            from a symphony recording 
came back to repeat and repeat. 

And even as I began to vanish 
            into these faint sounds 
my last sense pulled with me 
            the perceivable things until 
when I crossed into dream they rose up 
            hounds of light in chameleon shapes 
to teach me. 

What I have missed survives 
            my waking, revising past fears 
and faces into visions, darkness 
            to a warp of light. 
Some days to decipher the levels of the nights 
            is what keeps me. 
Almost I enter the code 
            during the aching phrases of Mozart; 
with sheerest shadows that approach 
            like an act of will against the light; 
in moments time seems reversed

and I scour language to consider 
            how those lost hours and fears, 
those diminishing sounds, 
            are trying to tell us 
what we are not; that we can’t 
            quite know all that our mounding need
has convinced us we must; 
            how what has already passed 
even in dream 
            collects—polish or rust— 
on the future.