A waking dream

Tonight, see moonlight through high branches,
deeper shadows, streets windswept and alone.
No lights anywhere on Earth. So, hello …
where in silhouette, barely moving, are you?
……(I have called this imaginary person ‘you’
even though ‘you’ may not be here at all.)
……But let me first describe the things I see.
First, a tree beside me, branches sway tonight,
a distant house, far-away, with all its lights
and lives turned off, in late darkness.
……Wait, see a first, faint glimmer
under that far porch. Only moonlight distracts us,
still filtering down, as you say nothing.
Are you able to share this with me?
……After all, no man – or woman – is an island.
And, yes, you seem to agree, although, perhaps, we are all islands,
and point to something much further away.
……“It’s a clear night?” I ask.
……You whisper, “I saw it all play out, bathing night in brighter beams,
much earlier than now, as night had changed my mind.”
You point to the horizon. “That’s where I walked,
but feel so calm here, where life is simple fiction,
and, for some brief reason, might feel I know you.”
……I say, “But I am simply describing things,”
and try to walk more slowly. Then you explain,
“But I must stand here for so long,
or so it seems, between one thought and the next,
before taking the first step, even your smallest one.”
……Above us, a shooting star, uninvited, yet always expected
streaks across the sky, so we walk together now,
along deserted streets in this far, windy night
under shimmers of thin cloud, there only to distract
us both, as I become a ‘character’ in your mind,
and you already one in mine.
……Later, still standing here in moonlight,
under leafy trees, the night again might encompass…
……“It’s the same for every one,”
you say, “in any world seen through our eyes,
it’s all made up. One is always one, not second hand, not even
when walking hand in hand, on some windy,
moonlit night, such as this, yes even here!”

*

……Wait! See that fountain etched ahead,
under bright stars, at first a dot, its faintest sparkle
soon huge as we both approach. Even at this late hour,
it must erupt with life, all its rare high jets will crease
the air with efflorescence, perhaps always.
……“Indeed, this fountain is mysterious,” you say.
“Yet a real mystery has no answer at all,
otherwise, it can’t claim to be a mystery.”
……I hesitate, to ask more of you, but any ‘other’ one meets,
you declare, is always but a stranger. True, though you
seem to know so much, about so many things,
as this story unfolds, and beside the fountain now,
in this windy, moonlit night.
……“We must wait here for life’s lost fountain
to erupt?” you say, “as if the world should cloak
your moods now, even as this story
leaps instantly to life, just because you wish it to.
As I also do, now more vividly awake, as we
walk in circles, until you have forgotten me entirely.”
I ponder this, self-immersed in the fountain’s light. It slowly fills
with silence, on this endless, windswept street,
together and alone, here, tonight.

*

……Suddenly, we both see chairs are placed
beside us, and not just two, as more merge
and new arms welcome that far house,
its light still on, under its tiny, far-away porch,
now opening silently, seeming all by itself.
Through its open door, one by one, listen for the slightest sound
as it also fills with our listening, a shared stillness,
the silence you have never heard, the silence framing
everything in this street tonight, the trees and stars,
its perfect fountain and clear moonlight.

*

……Walk with me now, as just two ‘characters’
in our own stories, then so am I,
and can almost see new faces, in night’s mirror now,
more reflections of yourself, of me.
We hear them all approaching, across this
page of moonlight, step by weightless step,
hear them all return – in whispers, the moonlight,
vast silences… as the fountain erupts, again.
……But you are distant now, no longer listening
as I take off one shoe, and throw it with a splash.
“No script was in that shoe,” I say, “Some dreamy
difficult day… I will, I will…” Then speak again,
but solely to myself, whisper words which hear
night say, “Always, through our masks, and its
trembling lace of shadows, on lovely evenings
such as this… again and again,
here time is an island, in the sea of itself,
and we are, equally, always, each other,
both together and alone,
and must always return, hand in hand,
to this windy moonlit night.

 ——–

John Jenkins is a widely travelled writer living on Melbourne’s semi-rural fringe, near the Yarra Valley. His most recent books are Poems Far and Wide, Puncher and Wattmann, 2019; a collection of self-illustrated nonsense poems, Busybird Publishing, 2021; A Double Act, poems co-written with Ken Bolton, Puncher and Wattmann, 2022; The Sky Inside Us, Ginninderra Press, 2022. John is presently working on a collection of short stories and novellas. New website: https://johnjenkins1.com