Dream of People

There is a lagoon and a great loveliness of boats
is on it. The water is alight
as if the sun declared a hidden hand of colour.
All is movement: between the painted woods
is a dance of angels. And what music seems to burn
as voices crowd the day.

Waking to plain being
I catch at one I almost forgot: it was a swan
that came to me and addressed me in this flood.
O what sleep will bring it again? Which land
shall I go to next? Where turn towards that meeting?

No: there is no place, no time
to be arrived at. Only a dream
of pleasurable water, a dream of the soul’s moment,
of people as they are, a dream-mirage
in the desert of self.