A Lost Art ( a collaboration with Tess)

Perhaps when you are silently reading, your hair takes on the appearance of somebody sleeping. You move among the pages, turning over between two dreams. The mountains rise behind as you inhabit the stillness of the bay, and immerse yourself in the gentle sunlight gliding along the water’s surface. The story is worth your attention, yet nothing will come of it, no one will be saved.

Or maybe your stillness invites the anonymous sleeper who curls into the placid blue surface of your dream, to be that silent witness beside you in waves like the rippling heat rising as you turn to see the plunge and shadow of a pelican’s wing, just as it passes beneath the sun. And you are of two minds, one that will stay after the dream recedes to watch the water, the other that will travel through the mountain passes with men one can only dream of, their thick braids hidden under the wooly coats they wear, and their large empty hands like wooden begging bowls. In the distance, a soft clanging of bells.