Dreaming Before Dawn
Dreaming before dawn
I scale the wild hill
and climb that ancient tree,
looking back beyond the wooded splendour.
Where are the galleried nightfalls
and the hooded winters? Where the green seas
breathing upon the land?
I wonder what the future molds,
what new creatures scratch our soil,
building from the flows of things we’ve been
in a land without any names.
I begin to wither,
stumbling forward to awaken
where there are no dreams,
where there is no hill to scale,
nor tree’s great arm to hold me in the swaying dawn.
I look forward to a world beyond all these:
the river rising with the moon
even while the storm hawks gather;
the nights alive with lovers
below the plainsong of the stars;
the sunlight dancing for hours in the leaves
before the snowfall starts to tower in the trees;
or dreaming before the dawn.