Dreamlife

By Cliff Lake

Dreamlife

 

In the dreamlife we held,

We once heard the tree-song,

To lull us to restoration

After the long labor

Tending to mother world

And to the kin

Sharing this earth

And this life.

 

Tools we fashioned

To ease our labors

That we might loll beneath the boughs,

Or laze by the shores.

In the dreamlife we held,

We became enamored

Of our own cleverness,

Coming to believe

That life is not its own magic,

And that we are the creators of wonders.

 

The lack in understanding

Of the dreamlife we held

Has led us to

The fading of the world.

How must we live now,

How do we endure?

Is this the passing of all things,

Is there a cure?

 

Reminders there are,

In deep wood,

Out on the deepest ocean,

Or caught in moon-ray

Seen in glimpses

Or found in your deepest sleep.

In the dreamlife we held,

Rooted memory dwells,

Silver-edged,

And too real to be entirely forgotten.

 

What path leads?

What return may be followed?

Somewhere behind the busy mind

Do you not hear distant bells calling?

Sometime between your hurried cares

Do you not feel the pull of far shores?

Somehow in the track of the moth’s flight

Have you not read the tale of reveries lost?

Our imaginations

May know more reality than this drear,

And may show us the way back

To the dreamlife we held.

 

Cliff Lake 9/2/2024

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2024

Location: Wichita, KS, USA

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