Hunting The Muse Poem by Linda Marie Van Tassell

The pillow of night presses down,
smothering a train of thoughts
until it derails, dissolving into the sky,
taking with it my beloved muse.

A few moments before, she had waved
to me, with a smile of promised delight
through a window of shaking time,
her hair a calligraphy of words and wine.

As the wheels turned, a whistle blasted,
muting the words of her moving lips.
I think she spoke of a monarch butterfly
but it flew away on the breath of her departure.

I try to trace the memory, follow the tracks
that will take me back to where I belong;
but clouds roll across with restless wings
like the smoke that swallowed her smile.

With pen in hand, I script only silence,
having forgotten what I wanted to write.
I cradle the shadows in my eyes,
but there are no lullabies for me to sing.

They will have to wait for now, the words
stuck in the mud of a rambling rain
within the valley of the heart and mind
chasing the ring of Saturn's sphere.

Someday, when I least expect it,
the wind will open my soul to welcome her home.
Until then, the dark silence sleeps
in the soft hollow of a crescent moon.