It’s Too Quiet to Sleep

Stars Twinkle Distant Reassurance

Cloudless night aches endless around me. This time, I remembered flashlight, rugged sneakers Accustomed to red dirt and dusty trails, Soft pants I never used as pajamas When we slept with our dreams entwined.

Done lying with nevermore, never enough, I launch myself out into the night where the air is cool, Where there are whispers of life being lived In the darkest shadows, merest slivers of light. Inside quiet is too quiet and also not quiet enough With drip of faucet, sighing of dog, creaks of old house.

The night is alive with magic, of fantasies claiming truth So convincing I agree to believe in them, Same as I believed in you although you were no fantasy. Flashlight bumps gentle guarantee against my side, Promise of light when the darkness becomes too much For sleepless one who will never rest easy again.

Harsh, dry land is receptive at night, allowing wanderer To stumble, startle at unexpected flash of yellow eyes, Walk into cactus, squash eager delicates wanting to bloom. When I arrive at our clearing, familiar has shape-shifted form Into watchful patience with long memory and future eyes Staring into mine, daring me to swipe tears and look.

These stars danced thousands of years ago, not dead yet, Same as me remembering, pondering the ones who are gone To their next place, leaving me behind to meander Desert hunting dreams, yearning for trace of who we were When we didn’t know the echoes we had yet to lose.

We need stars.

Stars don’t need our gape-mouthed awe, wild guesses at their names and if they belong to a constellation a smarter person would be able to identify.

We need the night, true night without blaring lights, raging music, insistence on leaving on lights for the danger that never comes and the ones who never will return home.

Dreams need the darkness of night, the chance to ripple, cascade, effervesce, whirl in delirious and delicious mayhem with meaning at its heart, but you will never get to that heart for as soon as you come close, the heart transforms to mute stone and thuds to ground.

We need dreams to be our fullest, most animal selves, to sort and weave into new stories to live, rising and falling in a never-ending adventure.

We need dreams.

Dreams need us to dream them — and to keep dreaming them, twitching our adventures, dancing with the stars.