Gossamer Thread

Our souls are bound by a delicate string,
A spider silk dangled butterfly wing.
Caught by a fleeting and fragile strand,
Severed in death, stretched in dreamland,
Tethered to our bodies by gossamer thread.

I asked my mother why in my dreams I fall,
Tumbling I wake with the shock of it all.
She told me that is no fall but a snap,
The chain that keeps you in the world’s trap,
Joined to flesh by a gossamer thread.

Though I soar between the stars when I’m asleep,
Winging alone in space so serene and deep,
I get snatched back through the atmosphere
To suffer decay, heaviness, and fear,
Inexorable pull of gossamer thread

And if old Atropos takes her scissors and snips,
Nothing will make me come back from these trips.
I’ll traverse the obsidian sky,
Unbound and eternally free to fly,
Unencumbered by gossamer thread.

When soul meets husk with a violent start,
Knowledge of one certainty will soothe my pounding heart,
From dreams I must awake
But one day this cord will break,
Final release from gossamer thread.