The Dreamers

The Dreamers

 In one of the dreams men tell how they woke

 a man who can’t read turned pages

 until he came to one with his own story

 it was air

 and in the morning he began learning letters 

 starting with A is for apple

 which seems wrong

 he says the first letter seems wrong

 a man with his eyes shut swam upward

 through dark water and came to air

 it was the horizon

 he felt his way along it and it opened

 and let the sun out so much for the sun

 and in the morning he began groping for the horizon

 like the hands of a clock

 day and night

 a man nothing but bones was singing

 and one by one the notes opened

 and rose in the air and were air

 and he was each one

 skin mouth ears feeling

 feathers he keeps counting everything

 aloud including himself

 whatever he counts one is missing 

 I think I fell asleep on a doorway 

inside someone was coming

 walking on white heads that were the best words I knew

 and they woke at that step for the first time and were true

 when I came to myself it was morning

 I was at the foot of the air

 in summer and I had this name

 and my hand on a day of the world

 --W.S. Merwin