When I was 23, upstairs in the house
on the busy street
I went to bed and had a dream.

I was in my own bed, in my dream
and a man came into the room
older than me, but not by much
he was nice looking, and had a brown beard
and hair-

get up- he said-
I am a projection here and it
takes too much energy for me to stay long

I got out of bed, amazed.

you must learn to put your problems
into your dream state
and work them out there, he told me
and then they will resolve in waking life

and he was gone.

I stripped and remade the bed, repeating
his instructions to myself, out loud
and telling myself that I could do this, I really could

it was known to me too, that if he was a projection
in my world, then very likely
I was a projection too, of one sort or another.

this is the most clearly overt the dream people
have ever been
though they are rarely out of touch-

they come to take me on the Endless Journey
night after night and show me things
that riddle like poetry
and fill up all the following days
as I try to see through the vastness
of the weaving that is this life
this 3-d printout of the spiritual song
and find my place in it.

I try, in part, because it is that which I must do
and I try, in part, to counter the gnawing
groundlessness that eats me alive every morning
when I awake, in sadness and fear

what a funny tact to use
to try to find grounding in the most
groundless and limitless space there is
the eternal world of dreams
from which everything flows.

it’s all that I know
it is the tool set given to me-
along with the urge to ask questions
to talk to trees and animals
to feel the lift and fall of the wind at night
and to stand calling, with no sound
when the moon shows her face

in that moment that the world calls back
you will never hear from me again
there won’t be a need
I’ll be everywhere, with the dream people
making the rounds
and taking the likely culprits
on a journey that never ends