In the Dream

Sometimes I think I would rather live in the dream.
As they sit by the fire,
holding beer cups in their gloved hands, their mouths rippling with laughter,
I press my back to the dying warmth,
the last glow of sun, bled into rock,
and, through the cold air above my sleeping bag,
I watch the shock of pointed light,
the needle-threads woven into shapes that don’t matter,
that only I can see,
where the mystery lives,
deep wind through a canyon,
a bear’s paw-prints in the snow,
the eyes of an owl on my back,
as I walk into a sea of ferns,
a moss forest that smells of rain,
and I hold out my hand to the huckleberry
and wade into the cold, dark river,
and lay down and float, alone, alone,
to the sea.