Dreaming is the only true democracy
A man stands under a tree in the rain
He is watching a window high up in the building across the street where a dancer is practicing
She moves in and out of view, making fleeting shapes,
like brushstrokes in the square of yellow light
Tonight she will dream of swans floating on a lake that reflects a grey sky
and he will walk in a desert and find a faded photograph and not recognise his own face
In the silent room below the dancer an old woman dozes by the fire,
training her telescope through the portholes on the turning world below,
recording all that she sees in intricate, jewel like paintings
At her feet a small ginger cat dreams of being a circus pony
while, in the kitchen, the electric toaster dreams that he is an oracle
scorching out prophesies onto each slice as it pops up
The trees outside dream of honey and rain and metal winds
A car slides past, scattering puddles to diamonds,
a child curled under a blanket on the back seat drifting in a shoal of bright purple jellyfish
All the while,
below the skin of the city,
the bedrock tumbles like rolling clouds.
First published in The Heart as Origami,
Rising Fire Press -2005