inaugural: for Uncle Walt

The soft voluptuous opiate shades

the sun done gone, its eager light dispell'd (i too will soon be

shoo'd, dispell'd)

in the haze

--of rest and night and of--

oblivion.

Splendour of ended day

floating and filling me at last,

o hour prophetic, that dream-hour reprising past,

inflaming soul with divinest things:

jazz-lush-crush-of-life till sweet-last linger gleams,

sing.....

This is thy hour, o worn soul, for free flight

into that vast and wordless far---

---books closed,

the lesson done,

the day erased,

time and its day at rest

night fully forth

engulfing,

silent,

gazing,

pondering themes loved most best

of life

and sleep

and blessed hope the child of stars.....