Illusions

Cale Young Rice

Last night in sleep there ran through me Elysian
Delights like these, of memory and vision:

The long creamy fall of surf on beaches
Which trouble nor rumor of trouble ever reaches.
A mocking bird on the brink of a bog singing,
Then over the rose of sunset egrets winging.
Cloud-veils, parted by priestly winds to show

A sacred mountain's mystic mitre of snow.
The moon, a silver bubble of illusion
Blown from the lips of twilight’s soft confusion.
Night, then deeper night, and on its pool
Lotos-stars, silent and beautiful,
Drifting toward Nirvana’s dreamless Cool.

University of Virginia Virginia Quarterly Review
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