I wake up, but I don’t open my eyes.
I try
to hang on to the dream space,
to stay there in the dream place.

I am alone in a dark room,
and there is a word projected on a wall-
like in that movie,
where the actress with the giant eyes
tries to completely hypnotize Kevin Bacon.
The word is ESSAY.

As the lights come up in that darkroom dream,
I realize that I am stumbling
through a labyrinth-
A gray maze of vast matter-
A vast maze of gray matter.
My brain. I’m in my brain.
Moving through the grooves,
as sparks shoot off the synapses,
and thoughts begin to stir.

Stir of Echoes! That’s the movie!
The ghost of a young girl
buried in the basement
haunts Kevin Bacon into digging,
and digging and digging until…

I remember, yesterday,
that word ESSAY was an answer
in one of my ritual morning games,
my morning ritual games,
and as I typed it, yesterday,
I was transported to room 304,
Freshman Composition.
Mrs Evans, standing
at the front of the room,
explaining that the English word, ESSAY,
comes from the French word, J’ESSAI,
which means I’m trying, or, I try.

And I was struck by
the idea that one word,
traveling over time,
crossing over continents,
swimming over seas,
can become another.

As I move through this maze of mind,
half awake half asleep,
remembering that yesterday,
I remembered that day,
I come face to face
with a smooth shiny slab of gray marble,
and a chisel.

And I begin to carve the word into the stone:
E-S-S-A-Y
Digging, digging, digging,
I’m trying. And, I try.