OUR REVELS ENDED

When all my dreams are done,
then will I go.
For now though, I am thankful for the dreams 
as I awake.
It is dreams that make us what we are,
and how we are,
and who, and where, and when.
It is dreams that make us different.

A dawning light,
a morning mist,
still sleeping,
softly adorns the landscape.
Facing a new, another, day,
thoughts escape
and find another place, 
a space to host another world
which we create, 
as no other creature can.

Caught between the times
of fore and afternoon,
foregone and soon forgotten:
an afterthought is wrought
in strange uncertainty – it is a midday mood
of vacillation, hope and fear.
Captured like this, we are conscious,
of our chance to choose,
while other creatures
have no conscious choice.

Hot and heavy, humid, 
lazy, languorous, lethargic,
the afternoon can sleep:
a void cosseting our dreams
which shroud and shelter us 
from life’s harsh lesions, 
avoidable by us
but not our fellow creatures.

Sometimes, the darkening sky 
forebodes, forbids,
heralding closure on another day,
denying us fulfilment or fruition,
dealing us frustration,
fret and fear and fright,
delivering a night of darkness and despair,
but even then, and even there,
the dreams will come
to soothe, assuage
our dread.

At other times, the sky is clear
and calm, and the blind 
is gently drawn,
with the moon’s white light
a soft and soothing pillow.

And so the cycle spins.
The darkness disappears,
inviting day, and light,
and life-affirming joy,
for no clear reason.
And we wonder at the cause, 
and at the contrast
with other creatures,
asking if this elation 
is unique to us.

We come and go, we creatures
of this world, marking our presence 
with little more than 
flesh and blood, 
and breath and bones.
And yet we dream.

It is by dreaming
that we make our mark
on this small space.

And then, 
when all our dreams are done,
we go, each one of us.  
A human.
Being.