Log of the Disaster

1.

A night so total
	scan where we may
eyes open or blind:
	Nothing,
no Outside.

Soon we'll forget
	the things
and what they meant
	and the nouns they went by.

Only our dreams 
	buried inside us
shining like day.

2.

But the listening world was tuneful and true,
the bow-wave shlshhhd, a knife through meringue,
somebody sneezed, a lissome achoo,
a creak, a clatter, a footstep...
and then a human voice was heard.

3.

Our Captain
	 quizzing his crew
if a light he saw or imagined
	blinking abaft,

was one of us striking a match,
	or, say,
an ember of Venus
	vanishing Westward.

No one stepped forward
	and said what he knew
with  seamanlike alacrity.

4.

In the timeless ensuing silences
	we seem to sense
whispering choruses, voices
	voluble, full of detail.