Dream

All night the moon sail sweeps across an ocean of blackness, pulling my red boat toward the shores of awakening, where you wait by your candle in the hour before dawn.

I steal through your window, bend down to kiss you, run my golden beams through your glistening hair, set these lips of fire on your forehead, like the ruby wound of the pearl-fanged serpent.

Only then do you open your eyes and inhale, imagining that my journey was a dream in the moment between two breaths.

But I was there, my dear. O yes, I was there! And which is the dream: that presence or this absence?

Now it is morning. Walk down to the shore. Above, even in blue day, the moon sails on, driven by a nameless yearning.

The tide recedes, but in ripples of silver sand you'll find my heart still beating, a strange living sign that there are creatures in the deep....


Painting by Josephine Wall