Four Turns

I have started down this road—

bliss as blackness,

cherished slumber evocative as jazz horns,

rhythms of timbales and samba drums.

I won’t answer the telephone,

the letter opened, at hand.

I am murmuring time away

like yawns and nods,

like woodwinds in quartet.

I’m raising my beard scratch face

from this lined page,

smeared trace  of writer’s ink.

Paper is patient, I’ve read,

pillowed sleep a host

constant as season and melody.