Howard M. Christopherson

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These shadows we share.

Clocks are always waking me from my sleep. Keep dreaming – keep dreaming.

We hunger together and alone, glancing out from a fish bowl each day turns into another night.

Try reading a map with my eyes. The light is bent through the tears that fill my sacred place.

Up to my neck in open boxes, you found me here sipping wine in a hideaway beneath the stars. Under the blankets I crawled away. I see no light and I feel no rain.

Talking in tongues, forever hanging from a shoestring. How can I look for more words in a box of only seven colors? Drawing pictures with broken crayons is what I do.

Again the child misspelled in my words calls out. Thoughts escape like tumbleweeds in the wind. A thousand scars have healed since my first deep cut. I struggle for my dream of painless perfection but a snowdrift keeps the door from opening.

This flashlight you gave me has a narrow beam. It helps me to see the cobblestones on the path. Tonight is like yesterday; I do not sense the twist of the corner before I reach it. I walk on stumbling in the dark looking for home and the fire circle of welcome. Time ticks out the clock and turns me like a whisper.

Holding my breath for each dream, I take aim with one eye closed. Stop the moment with a click then it becomes the past.
Alone I feel in this glass reflected.

From the shadows and into the light I offer my dreams with my heart, my hands and my eyes. This aging heart has no mouth to eat when it cries in hunger.

Join me my friend be my witness. You are inside and you are outside…
These Shadows We Share.

Howard M. Christopherson 2-2006

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