INTO THE LANDS OF THE GODS
Towards the Gods Far and Unknown
My reverie took flight, with autumn’s sight,
For I was abstracted, entranced, and light.
I beamed to the site suffused with insight—
The solutions are deep within the mind,
Reachable by dreams of the lucid kind.
I flew south from my home, in New Hamburg,
Over the Hudson river, toward Newburgh,
Past Chelsea, and the great Storm King Mountain—
On philosophical aspiration.
A wake of leaves trailed behind, like a stream,
While I gathered clues, through my musing means.
My design, in this vaporous pipe dream,
Was to converse with all the Gods who seemed.
If Fishkill’s and Peekskill’s murderous names
Had not been token enough, there soon came
A sequence of locales that seemed to be
Ominous in their triple proximity.
First was Sleepy Hollow, the haunted land
Of the gambols of the headless horseman,
Then the Gate of Heaven Cemetery,
And the surprising Town of Valhalla—
A bright afterlife of an old-time place,
Of shops built right up against the road race.
I stopped to rest, well away from the maze,
Dazzled by the lustrous autumnal haze,
In a warm day’s musk, before twilight dusk,
Near shining gates, toward the unearthly sod
Of the refulgent Graveyard of the Gods.
Over the stream, there was an arched bridge thrown.
Then I knew I’d gone beyond the known:
For in that span, each piece was a keystone.
I questioned two luminous angel goths,
“Where be the mythic Graveyard of the Gods?”
They looked askance, then smiled and pointed past,
“It’s just beyond the Land of Epitaphs.”
…