Window Shells

Out of body, I float through time, 
hover unaccompanied, no ghost as guide; 
nonetheless, through windows I peer,
Dickens-paned, layered veneers.

Yet in them, in those moments, 
the mise-en-scènes are still amiss–
a faraway look, a laugh insincere, 
a single, silent unwitnessed tear–

not necessarily sad, just adrift; 
have I never settled into my prints?
My soul, a gypsy, but wishing to barter–
tent for cabin, canoe for harbor.

My life does not flash before my eyes,
for this person, I barely recognize;
experiences play out, acts with multitudes of ends,
the quilt more mishappen-patched than threaded.

So many past lives I’ve lived and died within this one, 
so many false dawns that made me suspect the sun,
yet through it all, in this saga of my non-selves, 
I walk the beaches of my past and collect the treasures

beneath and between the shells 

and place them on the sunny sills of my present,
the true dawn of the genesis of me
that began when you kissed me into living
and finally led me home into my awaited dreams.