DREAMREADING

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wish I knew what that book was
Which I read in the starry dark -
Is it a diary of the day,
Recurring in the depth of night,
Floating up, up and then away
In the moonlit bay of castaway dreams?

I wish I knew what that book was -
Is it a never-never book,
Just by the third star on the right,
Always out of reach when I wake,
Sinking suddenly out of sight
In the faraway, moonlit bay of dreams?

I wish I knew what that book was,
Though I suppose I never will,
But deep in the sea of the night,
I know the words will wake again -
They will swim up into the light
In the moonlit bay of castaway dreams.

I wish I knew what that book was,
But I don’t really care at all:
The white sheet reappears and gleams,
And words will race along in lines -
Like these words coming now in streams
In the faraway, moonlit bay of dreams.

(2012)

Occasionally, words running along a shining screen too fast to read appear in my dreams – and that’s where this poem comes from. Quite how it came out as a sort of nursery rhyme, I don’t know, although the image of the Peter Pan island from the Disney film was er, hooked into my mind during the writing. Hence the picture.