Where do they go,
these herds,
these legions of words
I line up and file down
each night as I lie
unsleeping?
Words I dare not whisper
but to mist a mirror;
dare not utter, only mutter
from a cliff-top over crashing seas.
Past their prime,
their meaning, their time,
they sink beyond sounding
past ever foundling
to join the fining
that lines the mind's floor.
But when I sleep,
I dare to dream
of excavations
in the silt.