Five AM

Elan that lifts me above the clouds

into pure space, timeless, yea eternal

Breath transmuted into words

               Transmuted back to breath

       in one hundred two hundred years

nearly Immortal, Sappho's 26 centuries

of cadenced breathing — beyond time, clocks, empires, bodies, cars,

chariots, rocket ships skyscrapers, Nation empires

brass walls, polished marble, Inca Artwork

of the mind — but where's it come from?

Inspiration?  The muses drawing breath for you?  God?

Nah, don't believe it, you'll get entangled in Heaven or Hell —

Guilt power, that makes the heart beat wake all night

flooding mind with space, echoing through future cities, Megalopolis or

Cretan village, Zeus' birth cave Lassithi Plains — Otsego County

       farmhouse, Kansas front porch?

Buddha's a help, promises ordinary mind no nirvana —

coffee, alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms, marijuana, laughing gas?

Nope, too heavy for this lightness lifts the brain into blue sky

at May dawn when birds start singing on East 12th street —

Where does it come from, where does it go forever?