220

    I allowed myself to drift
    Through a series of unformed
    Impressions that the memory
    Of my bedroom had provoked :
    As the dimming earth fell away
    Relentlessly beneath the wheels
        So too a vast terrain fell
    Past the portal of my interior,
    Lit here and there by images
    Many of which I had thought
        Lost in distance and sleep.

        I will not open my eyes,
        I thought, believing they would
        Flee once superimposed : that
        In the low light of the carriage
They would decay and be forgotten.
I held them before me wilfully,
So the feeling they communicated
Should not disappear. Gradually the
Frail structure of my bedroom
Began to assemble itself in the
        Cavity of my thought as if in
The form of a diorama. Walls rose,
Membranes of tenuous construction
Serving only to house the objects
Of my recollection. They lacked
Texture and lapsed when examined,
But held while the vivid objects
Of memory held their places as
The anchors of all contained within.