The View on Waking

Melius enim iudicavit de malis benefacere, quam
mala nulla esse permittere.
—St. Augustine

There is a kind of crypt, between
This window and the window-screen,
In which fine silken webs, unseen,

Like wires in levitating tricks,
Accumulate, somehow, and fix
Bits of the outer world: small sticks

And past years’ leaves and wisps of straw
All hang, suspended in mid-fall,
Ensorcelled by some happy flaw

In joining that allowed the space
Through which stray things may find this place,
At once their tomb and saving grace,

Where gravity need not apply
And, unalive, they shall not die
As dreams do in the opened eye.

—Ryan Wilson