Sweet Dreams

A clear memory

involving you and me

in our heyday,

when we were vigorous

and efficient

in the way we did our lives —

our life together.

We are helping

a woman, a visitor

resting on our bed.

She is lying face down;

I don’t recognise

who she is, but I am familiar

with your compassion.

Then I become

lucid, and realise I dream.

At once I understand

this never happened here:

in my dream

I am dreaming another dream

as if remembering.

Can it be

we had a life, a continuity

beside this one,

on some other plane?

Did we always

inhabit each other’s dreams?

I like the thought.

Happiness was

the irrelevant by-product

of sharing our lives,

conducting them together.

It was being aligned,

interested in each other.

And we were helpful!

Happiness

was active; it was engagement.

I like that it goes on

in another, simultaneous realm

accessed by dreams.

Perhaps it keeps continuing

even when I wake.

In my mind now,

my awake, remembering mind,

I am running

to meet you, across a green field

by a stream.

There are low hills in the distance,

and wildflowers.

Written in response to the current Midweek Motif at Poets United: Happiness.