Dream Bubbles

The energy to dream comes to us by moonlight. Pale, flat lizards, white as night fog, gather the night light and digest it to send us the dream energy. The lizzards spread themselves thin on the ground, at night, growing thinner with every passing hour. They look like a mist that hugs the earth. They are softly resistant to the touch of our feet; like snow or beach sand.
As they gather the moon light, they begin to make bubbles that float into the houses of the sleeping people. The bubbles have eyes to see where to float and in the early morning hours, the bubbles fill the night sky, looking like children of the moon, nearly not there at all. They attach themselves to the forehead of the sleeping person and the smile of the lizzzard, the sense of ease, seeps into the body and a dance begins. The dream energy of the bubbles follows the need of the sleeper. The dreamer takes the clay-like energy and makes the figures and the setting and the audience. Then the dream begins and flows through the sleeper and back to the sky. The dream flows like a tendril vapor and freshens the moon before she slips into bed. She dreams of us, our days of work and lunches, comings and goings. In this endless dream, day and night, only the flat, white lizzzzards remain real. It is their delicate thinness and their easy smiles that gives them substance.

The Wind Children

The wind children are born in the Arctic South; their father the cold, their mother the warming sun. From a mysterious cave the gusts emerge, yet small but complete and voracious. Their mother feeds them a warm broth she cooks on the surface of the ocean. They grow strong with stamping feet, streaming, willful hair and long, tough fingernails.
Over the oceans they grow and on land they come to play. They comb the prairie grass and tickle the trees. With their long fingernails, the wind children tickle the trees in just the right places. The trees wave their many arms about and laugh and laugh, begging the wind children to stop and to not stop. The combed hair of the prairie glistens like gold in the afternoon.

Poem

The night-crow
Gently clasps
The moon-pearl
In her black beak.

Her endless-long
Feathers flash
With the light
Of a hundred
Million stars.

Slowly she turns her head
And
Tipping back, the pearl
Rolls down.
Swallowed safe
From the angry glare
Of the Day-King.

Poem

Overnight the old winter-sleeping tree
Came to life and sprouted
A dense growth of fine white leaves.

A cold moss covered the ground.

Even the rambunctious bamboo
Bent over and humbled
By the gift from the sky.

The wheezing of spinning tires
And the groans underfoot
Of flat diamonds crunching.

Channel Sights

A loose line of black birds stands solid at the water's edge. The birds are tipped forward and hesitant, as if deciding against diving in. The gray metal skin of the channel seems impenetrable and implacable; still and unruffled as those birds. Are they crows? What are they doing? Seagulls meander amongst them like beggers asking for spare change; searching and shy, looking for a friendly face.
The sight of the poised is so odd as to make me think I am seeing a modern art installation. Maybe the work of a famous landscape artist or a local unknown. Along with the excitement of witnessing a rare piece of art, comes disbelief; yet the little black statues are still, unmoving. Are those crows?
Further down the shore, two more loose groups of statues dot the distance. That's a lot of work, a lot of statues! But, that's the thing about artists; they do crazy shit and can be extravagant, packing a ton of time into a small space or manically manufacturing black bird statues, to place at the water's edge, at low tide, for no good reason at all.
Finally, I see one of the birds move. The illusion of artistic innovation and excess is shattered. I am back in the real world, the world of nature, where grand canyons and endless artic white are common.
Somewhere on a white canvas, a small black dot of an Inuit hunter is heading home. Home is past the edge of the blank canvas. Somewhere in a gray day landscape, next to the slash of a channel, a black dot writer is also heading home. Thinking of dinner and warmth, he and the hunter, both part of a painting in progress. They and those implacable birds, with meandering seagulls, asking for change.