By late July,
  I’m counting sheep again.
    I find an unknown land
        to gather the remnants

of my lucid dreams.
  Each night I’m walking alone
     across deserts where
        nothing ever grows.

Years of rainfall
   have left them barren.
     By late July,
         the deserts are beginning

to fear the sun once again.
   I talk to them, and say;
     ‘Don’t be afraid. I hear
          a thunder storm approaching.

El Niño will flood
   the riverbeds close by
      and you will, once again,
         flourish; a beautiful oasis

blossoming with life.’
   I am consoled by my own
      inability to sleep.
         The empty spaces ahead,

no longer phase me.
   As the desert is brought to life,
       a flower lies below each
          step I take through my nights.

If I look deeply enough
   the faces on the flowers
       begin to tell
          their own stories.

They tell of years underground,
    a seed in the desert soil
       still, motionless,
          waiting patiently;

the awakening
    of sleeping beauty
       comes slowly
           then suddenly.

I consider how they grow,
    they neither toil nor spin;
        they simply be.
           I stood silently.

All night, I waited.
    I watched them;
        how they trust all
           they need, will come.

They neither toil nor spin –
    for all they said  
        was shown to them.
           ‘You see,’ they say

‘one day you’ll finally know,
    all you needed to do.
         You must not fight,
            just be.’

By late July,
    I stop counting sheep.

© Sia Jane