Drips

I sit awake as rain dies down to drips,

While all around me dreamt-of fancies flit

And murmur on the slumbering, fluttering tongues,

And dance in fantasies and songs unsung,

As still I, all alone but still here, sit

Awake and count the endlessness of drips.

And still I sit while cartwheel stars above

Obediently their various journeys trail,

And all the while the silvered, pitted disc

Another lonely night in heaven risks -

Its face, so white, so mournful and so pale -

Bereft of ever having known a love.

So there I sit, as night so softly slips

And creeps into the corners of the streets

And golden sunlight cleanses out the dark,

The woeful owl replaced by joyful lark.

But as those others wake to nothings sweet

I sit there still, and count the endless drips.