I dreamt a dream last night.
I dreamt there was only One Life: That the universe was dreaming through us all, Meeting all motion and becoming its soul, And with the sun streaming through the prism of my Romanticism, I dreamt of rainbow serpents projected across my walls Like songlines through the Dreamtime, Tracks well worn by the footsteps of spirits with a greater understanding than mine – A sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused.
And when my own night-time demons, tired and abused, Stepped out in front of that black velvet curtain To fight against the backdrop of my sanity once again With weapons fashioned out of toxic words, and memories, And the broken windows of opportunity, I dreamt last night, with a bravery beyond my ken, That they danced with these new players; These totems of the land that are both within us and abroad, And from my one-man audience I couldn’t help but applaud Because I believed last night in the Great Dreaming: The connection of spirit, to earth, to flesh and bone, The responsibility into which we are born, To treat our world and each other with respect And never to neglect our roots. Why is this so hard to accept?
We are the stuff of galaxies. We are matter, And the energetic space between what is and is not: We matter.
We are dreamers. We trace the trajectories of our ambitions like comet trails Across the cosmic background radiation of our ruthless optimism, We buy tickets to the nocturnal picture house To watch footage of our joys and terrors Our triumphs and errors, And see that the Dreamtime space is gargantuan, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns – We dream, we dream, we dream, Until the breath of this corporeal frame, And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul.
This was the dream I dreamt.
[Written for the devised piece ‘Dreamtime’, at the Drama Studio London]
© Georgina Barley 2016 (with a little help from Wordsworth)