Poem by Denny Lyon
Pastel Drawing by Denny Lyon
Dreaming Words
Warm comfortable drifting
Toggling between this waking world
And the world of dreams symbolic
Sheets, those delicious summer skimmers
Glide as bodies turn side to side in repose
Gently
Quietly
Softly the growing silence
Easily falling down to fade
*Wake up!*
Comes an unwelcome startling voice
Eyes closed
Face grimaces a frown
*Wake up!* voice insistent, repeats
Ascending the dark stairway of knowledge
Rubbing my inner mind’s eye
Flinging open the huge door to light
Asking *What?!*
About to fall teetering backward
Into the comforting quiet dark
*What?!*
*Write it down*
*Now? It’s the middle of the night!*
Aware it’s a losing battle
Dutifully returning to the waking world of dark
Reaching out, fingers fumbling for bedside notebook and pen
Scribbling on lines overrun from hands half asleep
Too large is the messy handwriting
Next morning tough to decipher
Words tumble down onto paper out of the inner dark
That vast library of knowledge, universal to all
Opening the heavy tall thick door
Written words enter, marching out onto now
The waking world bathed still in eerie moonlight
Fulfilled the bleary-eyed scribe’s task
Tumble backward to welcoming sleep
Covers pulled high over weary, oh, so tired, body
Descending the long narrow stairway
Down
Deeper
Arrived
The loving library of inner knowledge
Infinity to yet explore
Artifacts of knowing to drag home
And leave quietly on some welcoming doorstep
Denny Lyon
22 June 2008
