Boquillas Canyon Nocturne Draft 3 (Contrapuntal)

The third draft of the same poem, but now you can read it three ways!

I vaguely remember

 

Once, in the deep basin bordered

by Boquillas’ Pillars structured

like Cathedral Domes was a night

 

with a darkly clear sight,

 

free from scaly moonlight,

and floating through the murky dark ceiling

were sights I don’t deserve to see,

 

when I strained my eyes at

 

luminous stars so serenely

burning like the fireflies they are,

donning their surreal forms

 

mutating flickers

 

            of pearlescent glowworms

shining blue and green whilst

clinging to their darkened cave,

 

perched in an onyx vault

 

no longer the many meek slaves

of the raging sun’s stinging rays

that launch their torments

 

I could relax without the burning rash

 

on my nape while riding the currents

that have tumbled over smooth stones

eroded smooth, but still gilded

 

during the lethargic arcs of the sun

 

in the earthen soot of dust crushed

from other canyon pillar now carried

            and harried by the raging wind

 

and humid beating of still air

 

who still claws through the air when

his solar king is vanished and lunar

empress has retired. Now I can

 

tame the twitch of my pupils,

 

hear boulders, pebbles and sand

carried along as I was carried along

to this spot where I’m still awake,

 

a pretentious, novice star-gazer,

 

after the coldly cracked embers forsake

their warmth to choke on the cooling

river’s blood plucked from the same vein

 

of from the mountain’s cold stream

 

I traveled through since the dawn’s reign.

I wonder what heart I’m paddling to,

under the silken blue tapestries

 

soft as a flower petal and smooth as ice.

 

now slipped from their vaults in pieces

so that the chorus of pilgrim crickets,

hermit owls, or the restless, eremite river

 

Sing in the canyon’s cathedral!

 

harmonize to resound ever clearer,

upward to the angelic glowworms,

as a euphoniously chaotic symphony.

 

Hear the echoes of a vault

 

This is the heart, I know certainly

I belong here, though an undeserving

audience, but a welcomed witness,

 

set far above the stones under your feet!

 

freed from fickle distress

to capture this fleeting moment

before the sun’s dreaded ascent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

I am taking a big, risky experiment, so tell me how to make this poem excellent.