Let us examine the symbolism of dreams

 

The falling dream. The flying dream.
The dream in which you lose your teeth.

The abandoned kittens, the lost dogs,
the infant floating in its cradle on the lake.

The woman weeping, alone, in the forest.
The beast with an urgent message,

a critical missive you don't understand.
You fall, and someone offers his hand.

You reach out, but your fingers slip
through one another like light, like water.

You walk through the rooms of your life.
They are laid out, one by one, like a rail-

road flat with no corridors, no hallways.
You watch your own life pass as though

in a mirror, somehow reversed, somehow
not quite as it was. You arrive at now.

You wake in the fog of morning, slanted
bars of light on the ceiling. These dreams

wrap the shoulders of your waking hours,
a hooded shawl for your long, flat days.

 

[I posted this too soon; I'm revising in place...]

[Tuesday morning: Revised, again.]