all things

I'm going to dream again tonight, and when I do, it will begin as a meaningless trip down some country lane I've never been down before. I'll notice things I thought I'd noticed all along,and I'll see a shape in the clouds I think I recognize.

I'll keep walking past a meadow where things will be half in bloom and half in decay. It will strike me as sad, for a moment, but I'll brush it off, as I always do. I'll continue down the lane, but stop when I feel my face flush and wet. It's too much, too soon, and I don't know what that means, but I go back to the meadow because all the things told me to.

I'll hop a broken fence, not because I need to, but because I want the fence to feel it still stands in places for some purpose. I can give it that much. I don't know where I'm going, but I follow the divining of my heart to a little upwelling of spring water.

I kneel here and pray, which is a thing I've not truly done in all my years of waking or dreaming. I pray not because I know how, but because this moment is the only moment I could have imagined doing so. All the stories about praying seemed contrived, a little too large to fit down my little honest throat. Some pills will never go down.

But here I will pray, and I will pray by listening. Day turns to eve, and I am there still, hearing about the world from a wellspring's point of view. I imagine that I'll be surprised most by these two things: that I am known and that I have nothing to do with me. That is what the wellspring says. It takes so long for water to speak, especially old water like this one. But that is part of what makes its words so dear to me (for if a thing is said quickly, one wonders about its value.)

Day and night pass on overhead as I lie in state. I will sense other passers by, and I will smile if any of them come near, but none of them will. I have always known that humans will avoid what looks like a dead body or what looks like a lonely person or what looks like peace.

It is time for me to go, as I sense the dreamdust running out. I hurry back through the meadow and jump the fence. I hurry up the lane, past the staunch, upright trees, back to where I started, and when I get there, I wake up. For the first time, I wake up and burst forth upon the land.

***

My meadow is quiet, half in bloom, half in decay. There is an old broken fence at its edge. The lane brings passers by. I have nothing to do with me. And I am happy.