I lie down and slip into the darkness each night… Upon my earthen bed,
My eyelids flutter, they still again… Seamless visions flow thru my head.
At times, I’m flying and diving like a wild bird… Knees aching from all the falls,
Other times my feet are sluggish, and slow… Struggling to follow muted calls:
From countless friends and foe… Often changing, one second to the other,
The face that I am fleeing from… Suddenly shifts- and becomes another.
Beauty and horror I have seen… The things that I saw in real day light
Slip like mist into my mind… To be the wild and vivid dreams of my night.
But in all the years that I have slept… I only recall one dream, possibly two,
Of someone I love more than my life… For I have only twice dreamt of You!
Oh how can this be so, Dearest Friend…? For my heart beats to see and know
Your thoughts, Your ways, Your steps… To see where You secretly go.
I long for the stories of my sleep… To pull my soul to a world beyond,
Where I fly and sing and breathe… Reaching out, too enthralled to respond.
So why, my Love, why are You not there…? Why are you seldom ever seen?
In warm visions of a resting head…Where water’s blue, and fields are green?
Perhaps I don’t often enough… Fix my mind on glorious thoughts of You?
Perhaps if in the day I saw You more… Then You would fill all of my nights too!
Why do I so intensely feel all of this…Why does it suddenly bother me more?
Because! I caught a glimpse of You… Last night, on that last foggy shore!
It’s like a silk shaft through my heart… Each time I stop and picture You there.
You’re like the elusive summer wind… One moment, beside me, then nowhere.
I see you amongst the rest in my mind… You’re like a Lover among my enemies.
I thirst for just one sight of You… A blind woman, who sees only in her dreams.
What I can’t clearly see in the day… I long to behold in the darkness of night.
I know You delight to visit me there… On the edge, and just out of my sight.
I know I cannot explain it very well… And yes, it may only sound really odd:
But I know now more than anything else… That my longing is for dreams of God!
-Shana Kohnen
