Don't be afraid to dream

A little ode to the other side of wakefulness

take seriously
the taskless task 
of lying still.
breathing.
letting your mind
shuffle images
until its wrists
grow tired.

there’s no marker
for the slipslide
into dreamland--
gauzy breezeway
miles or millimeters...
time takes itself out
of the framework, 
goes to the bar
mindlessly ticking off
REM cycles 
while school pals 
run backward, 
twine through
old ‘hoods,
roomies and
ghosts and
lovers rerolling
the yarn 
in fast cars 
along racing rivers
and you!
you hold onto 
all the possibility
still, somehow,
oh so still.

don’t be afraid to dream. 
set down your tools 
and those beguiling concerns.
wrap up, 
lay flat, 
and rest.
your list is empty.
nothing is needed.
you are free.

---

Poem 4 of 31 in the series “The Liminal Season.”

Frances gave me the prompt today, the word “hibernate.” The image is my twin’s long ago birthday sleep over when the girls all decorated a pillowcase— this artwork by Hannah Head.

“It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.”
― Edgar Allan Poe