Mr Cassian’s 51st Dream – a poem by Tim Miller

Mr Cassian’s 51st Dream

I watch from the woods as he disperses
not seeds but metals and stone and some coins,
scattering them far over the spring earth
from the satchel slung over his shoulder.
And I stay to watch spring come and I see
bodies there, growing up out of the ground,
nourished by earth and ore and the noon sun.
Some come in pairs, the linked bodies of lovers
come from this celestial agriculture.
And as the year recedes they fall to earth,
bodies returned to the beneath or pecked
by the birds who have been refined in flame,
whole flocks of black stone doing their work
for another winter, and resurrection.
Decay is a tremendous smith, I said,
decay turns heaven and earth into glass
decay melts and slides and makes for revival.
My feet are the wet leaves when I find sleep,
my spirit the slime of slow rotation,
the digging, the overturned, the dark earth.

Tim Miller’s “Mr Cassian” poems are from a collection of poetry and fiction called School of Night. Other pieces from the book have appeared/are forthcoming in Southword, Cutthroat, and Bold+Italic. He is online at wordandsilence.com.