Waltz of Consciousness

For Patty – August 1, 2002

Sleep crawls in under night’s soothing blanket
With a comforting voice it compels, please follow
My mind, ensnared in a day’s many traumas, resists
Then surrenders, too frail to repel fatigue’s advance
And I drift, like so many leaves on a pond’s surface
Floating, falling, descending into calm darkness
Into the realm of magic, the domain of dreams

A pinhole of light pierces the ebony curtain
Then explodes in a confetti burst of color
Sharp contrast in one instant, blurred motion the next
Things familiar and foreign competing for center stage
Light, music and the suggestion of a scent
Neither sweet nor sour, not old, not new
Amid a downpour of disembodied emotions

Even the dead sit as guests of honor here
With equal voice and substance as those who yet live
No bottlenecks between memory and precognition
Real, unreal, surreal, all coexist in harmony
In folly, I attempt to inflict a sense of order
Searching for hidden meanings, pursuing some bold truth
As thought bubbles collapse under weight of the fantastic

I know this journey, have taken it so very many times
For all that is familiar, it is forever destined to be new
A landscape of feelings – love and laughter, suspense and fear
Chaos a marionette dancing to the mind’s strains
When sleep releases its hold and reality draws me back
Memories are as fleeting as the dream scene itself
As day clears the canvas for this night’s fresh creations