After Midnight
Sometime after midnight
Han Shan drifted down
a mountain path
and arrived in my dream
only to announce
that every angel is terrifying
also that heron you saw
by the muddy pond
was not real.
You, reader,
may believe this or not.
Han Shan said
that he does not
though he spoke
such words
to me
as if
they were his own.
_________________
Michael Palmer
Little Elegies for Sister Satan
New Directions, 2021
