A dream after a long night

• I am three and ten.

The cast list is out!
My name is there?
Fine, I’ll read it now.
Which part did I get? I don’t care.
Just a reason to leave leave leave the house.

I’m given a tree and a bush, both “Number Five”
I wonder if I’ll have costumes and lines…
There’s waiting a script for me, but it’s empty and torn—
and old, and broken, and dusty—so worn!
Yet so hungry for holding, so ready for writing, or reading?
I cannot believe I ever thought of dying out there in the cold!
A part such as this, so open and free,
the tree should feel lucky, and blessed? 

Well, surely yes: glad to be me.

stop.

• I am three and twenty.

Now I am gone and find a room full of canvases,
blank are a dozen or more.
With only light sketches, the lines of first passes
show the imprints of distant artists before.
I gently fill in the lines as artist 5 or 6 with thick oil paint.

stop.

• I am someone and something.

Is my work done or just starting?
Time passes weird while we are dreaming.
The brush is now an old crumbly red brick,
the canvas a wall built on strong sturdy stone.
Yet my farcical life is too faux, it must be an instrument, a trick!
Why must this time be passed whilst alone?

stop.

• I am three and thirty or sixty.

Now with them, lying peacefully in the grass,
holding hands, filling our breast with the warm summer air at last,
This is the moment of something I cherish, I cherish, I promise I cherish.

Heavens, I was tired this night. 

I slept dreadfully restless!
I make little sense, I also neglect 

to believe it, for it was just a dream. 

Or was it dreamless?

stop.

• I am…