Ghosts And Highways Poem by jim hogg

I had this dream of us on stairs
with waltzing dancers all in rows
and all around us not a trace
of anything that we could hold
just falling grain and tumbling waves
and far horizons, distant planes

(chorus)
too many hills lie in between
the wounding and the mortal song
the endless crumbling of the real
and all that I've been running from
where all we were fell incomplete
where only ghosts and highways meet

I loved those moments most of all
when we were lost inside the hurl
beyond the solemn things of love
along the midnight edge of us
where sea and shore just disappear
not where the dream betrays the real

no, I was never brave enough
to shape an ending we could share
and time turns everything to dust
as silent as an opened vein
a river's worth of tender trails
the history we never made

(chorus)
too many hills lie in between
the wounding and the mortal song
the endless crumbling of the real
and all that I've been running from
where all we were fell incomplete
and only ghosts and highways meet

the scribbles on the railway bridge
all seem to speak of something lost
but there's no second flex and swing
at all those thrills, at all those odds
and now I hope she won't condemn
this holding on to all that's left

a broken wing, a flake of snow
her every sway, her tenderness
an overbite I used to know
as if she's woven through this flesh
but vultures lurk amongst the trees
to swoop and tear these memories

11 01 22

(adapted from A Dream Reflects)