In the Dream

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Sometimes I think I would rather live in the dream.

As they sit by the fire,

holding beer cups in their gloved hands, their mouths rippling with laughter,

I press my back to the dying warmth,

the last glow of sun, bled into rock,

and, through the cold air above my sleeping bag,

I watch the shock of pointed light,

the needle-threads woven into shapes that don’t matter,

that only I can see,

where the mystery lives,

deep wind through a canyon,

a bear’s paw-prints in the snow,

the eyes of an owl on my back,

as I walk into a sea of ferns,

a moss forest that smells of rain,

and I hold out my hand to the huckleberry

and wade into the cold, dark river,

and lay down and float, alone, alone,

to the sea.