Canyon

My hand goes out to grip the rail
Reflexively, to cope 
In some small way with an unexpected 
Spell of vertigo. 

“Oh yes,” my mind is telling me, 
“I’m sorry, I forgot 
To say the world is old and vast,  
And you are young and not.” 

The last time I was here, I was 
My son, my now-dead father 
Was me, my wife my mother, and 
My sister was my daughter. 

The sky keeps changing channels. We 
Don’t have clouds in the valley. 
The ground shifts underneath me like 
The foredeck of a galley. 

The ocean has been emptied; naked 
Islands climb like cliffs 
Into the sun, then crumble slowly 
Into the abyss. 

A single muddy puddle barely 
Visible below
Remains in which to drown, if I 
Am so inclined to do so.