"Bill's Backyard, Bolinas"

by Tom Clark

Now light streams through the trees of the dream.

Dead friends idly amble through the arches

The green bower makes over our heads;

In Bill's backyard -- framed for this flashback

To the days before, or perhaps during, the Flood --

Things are, as in a kind of moonlit masque

Lit up at night like the carnival scene

In Strangers on a Train; yet strangers

There are none, only friends; summer fog coming in

On the marine layer clockwork shuttle

Over the populous village in the dream;

Sea, hill, wood, numberless goings on;

Off in the distance beyond Elm somewhere,

Off beyond Ocean Parkway in the mists,

A whistle buoy intermittent; blue reedy

Spiritual openness of Eric

Dolphy floating from inside the humble shack

Taking shape as words, a cool

Geometrical language; then cloudy faces

Tossed up on the cresting waves

Beyond the reef, in the dream: ghosts

Waving, not drowning. So let's make this stroll

Through the underworld last.