dream / life

repost | living a lifetime in a dream

dream / life

Sunday afternoon on the green couch. I fall asleep
and dream of another life, where I braid the years
into twine baskets to carry the summer harvest,
Where I dance along to the old songs of the earth.
When I wake up, it is pouring. Oh but the name!
There was a name on the tip of my tongue, all
those dream-years. And now it is gone, travelling
in some other wind. How easily a lifetime
can be forgotten. How easily a name can pack up
and travel east. A white-hot emptiness in my throat,
I wander into the kitchen. All around me, blooming
a conspiracy of silence and rain. A pale blue flame
crackles beneath the pan. I butter both sides of my toast.
I peel a mandarin and pull it apart, and then another.
Past the curtains, I watch the world blur at the edges
like a painting that someone knocked water over.
And maybe one day I will wake up from this too,
the taste of mandarins still bright in my mouth
for only a moment.

Photo by Mathias Reding