Dreaming the Real

An idea embraced the tendrils of the mind
in the timeless visage of a dream
that seemed to go on for a lifetime
with every emotion carrying its every ghost.

And as wakefulness washes the night’s slaughter of consciousness,
I feel strangely refreshed
despite that which had past, unbeknownst
formed a lower threshold.

Life disappears at every moment
as each breath exchanges with another,
pumps a pulse through that sacred economy
to give back what was never taken but owed.

Relentless winter encroaches upon the will
to ask whether we can put in another shift
when surrender sweetly sings her siren song
but the limbs decide before the mind, thankfully.

Tasks done a thousand times before
pants, shirt and brushing of teeth
and yet solid as rebar do they decorate
that crescive house of records.

Packet and ready, all items accounted for
with the coat and scarf and shoes
one steps out into the morning darkness
into another day long since begun.

To see the black skies still hosting stars
above the dewy lit streets
creates the image that nothing truly sleeps
but revolves in intervals oblique as messengers of an idea.

Some time after I begin walking
through the fresh morning snow
by the grace of memory, I am given to remember -
she was in my dream.

Then everything falls into place
for the warmth her memory carries
burns most bright in the freedom of dreams
a freedom once shared as reality.