DREAMREADING

I wish I knew what that book was -
The one I sometimes find to read
Between the covers of my sleep,
When words appear on clean white sheets,
Rising up from the strange, dark deep
In the faraway, moonlit bay of dreams.

I wish I knew what that book was
Which I read in the starry dark -
Is it a diary of the day,
Recurring in the depth of night,
Floating up, up and then away
In the moonlit bay of castaway dreams?

I wish I knew what that book was -
Is it a never-never book,
Just by the third star on the right,
Always out of reach when I wake,
Sinking suddenly out of sight
In the faraway, moonlit bay of dreams?

I wish I knew what that book was,
Though I suppose I never will,
But deep in the sea of the night,
I know the words will wake again -
They will swim up into the light
In the moonlit bay of castaway dreams.

I wish I knew what that book was,
But I don’t really care at all:
The white sheet reappears and gleams,
And words will race along in lines -
Like these words coming now in streams
In the faraway, moonlit bay of dreams.

(2012)

Occasionally, words running along a shining screen too fast to read appear in my dreams – and that’s where this poem comes from. Quite how it came out as a sort of nursery rhyme, I don’t know, although the image of the Peter Pan island from the Disney film was er, hooked into my mind during the writing. Hence the picture.