Note #10

I felt a funeral in my brain,
and mourners crossing through,
treading, treading, till it seemed
my senses slipped from view.

And when they all were seated there,
a service like a drum
began to beat, and beat, until
my mind grew cold and numb.

Then I heard them lift the lid,
and scrape across my soul
with boots of lead, again, again—
and space began to fold.

As if the heavens were a bell,
and being but an ear,
and I and silence, strange and wrecked,
were stranded alone here.

Then broke a plank within my mind,
and down through floors I fell;
and every floor became a world—
then knowing ended well.