In that,
My other life,
When I was a child,
We lived at the foot
Of the stairway to the sky
On the top of the hills.
It seemed I might have been walking
On the clouds gliding beneath.

My dad was a bricklayer
Paving The Yellow Brick Road
And building the stairway.
When his donkey became wise
And broke the promise of the long life,
My dad had me carry and lay the bricks and the stones
Until my hands and feet got calloused and sored.
He himself,home-stalemated,
Was telling foolish stories to his cat-soulmates.

Once after the Sunset
The daughter of Time-Weaver
Came to me out of the air.
The light breeze 
Winding around her
Smelled rainwashed and sweet.
She said 'I've got what you need'.
What she poured out
From her jasper box
Onto my palm
Felt like the soft velvet
Of the night moths...
- 'It's the ashes of your childhood dreams.'

As she told me to do,
I let them be gone with the wind...
Was it tricks of the moonlight?
But the night air around was filled with the wings...

By now it's been long
Since I descended into my senior years.
I discovered no one has any yen
To climb up the stairway to the sky -
- People developed the fear of heights...