Postcards

This piece has aggravated me long enough that I don't think I can improve it without some of your thoughts. Much obliged for whatever you might share. 

While you were sleeping

I saw a glinting on troubled

seas as failing moonlight

flickered along cresting

waves while rising strains

of the new day

played upon my back.

The wind spun,

the whole earth shifted,

great white birds danced

between the evanescing

stars and coming storm.

While daylight subdued

darkness, I watched

caught between the two,

unsure of day or year,

whether the living

world had invaded dreams

or just enthralled

by some rapturous

vision hanging on

ending in postcards

from the world delivered

before the storm—

from swollen Nile, smoky green

crocodile demurely lurking

near the livid bull elephants

solemnly plodding past wild

beach-grasses and tanned

parched ranges where Chinese

waterfalls sprang and rippling

down Japanese watercolor

mountains slate mixed with purple

on periwinkle rice paper.

Marine winds and a gathering

storm would seem poor

letter carriers for this world

at bottom rock hard

inviting us to revel

falling through bottomless

desires in dazzling

flash along that garden path

to love for a moment

while the forgetting is so long,

the mending so lonely.

We wake, wiser

perhaps,

fractured souls

still the bones

remain uncracked

and hearts cannot stop

however deep the sorrow.

Every postcard tells a story

that must surrender

as fog, rain, soundless drizzle,

puddle.