AWAKENING DREAMS

By John Herlihy

In our awakening dreams, the poetic words do flow,

All by themselves, as the buds and flowers do grow.

The night starts to close down as our dreams begin,

Everything from our sublime love to the wages of sin.

Who can account for the mysterious images on display;

The poetic words do flow and simply have their own way.

Jewels of mind born free of the consciousness of thought,

Those precious gems of mine that were never even sought.

My waking dreams have turned into poetic ripples glittering;

The verses march forward one by one without any pretending.

The glorious day offers a sunlit world, but the night is moonlit;

Casting shadows of the borrowed sun’s light in poetic script.

Jade mountains tower over sunlit valleys in the early morn;

Emerald forests spread forth endlessly in the dreamy dawn.

Magical castles nestled at the foot of cascading waterfalls;

Centaurs and unicorns there in a world that beckons and calls.

The Russian Steppes covered by a handmade blanket of snow;

The rush of mighty turgid rivers that carry glacial waters in tow.

Sadness and sorrow, happiness and bliss, flowing endless streams;

All emotions find a place to roam in this ghostly night of dreams.

Winter wolves howl in the shadow of the mountains of the moon;

Vast herds of buffalo, zebras, gazelle graze on prairie grass at noon.

The poet is a moth drawn to a lamp before the visions might fade;

Dazzled by poetic words, he puts his foot into mystical waters to wade.

Stately reeds whisper in the marsh swamp expecting me to respond;

Lotus pads float imperiously, quietly, in the wash of a moon-lit pond.

A tracery of shadows and light mingle as I reach for my bedside pad,

To quickly scribble out these ghostly impressions before they turn bad.

The lyrical poet has an army of words that run a risk that he may lose;

Often, the deepest insights to preserve are the ones he does not use.