I Will Run and Fly

I can’t stop dreaming these dreams of us together,

Wouldn’t stop dreaming them if I could.

You’re alive in me like heat lives in fire, like hardness lives in stones.

You’ve been casting dreams at me since I was a child,

Meeting me in the cool mist and darkness,

With grass and moonlight in your hair,

Dancing this dance with me since you were a girl.

I don’t want to dream another dream without you forever.

I’ve been a tree dreaming of the feel of running,

I’ve been a smooth river dreaming that I could fly.

One day I woke from the dark dreams of roots and earth,

One day I woke from the soft dreams of stones and wild rushing.

I can never be a tree again, not with these legs,

I will never lie smooth against the embrace of cold stones and mud.

These feet love the taste of warm grass and cool sunshine,

These wings could never live without smooth air to glide in the darkness.

Such a terrible tree I’ve turned out to be from the beginning,

I’ve always been far to light to be so wet.

Never let me waste my thoughts on branching and budding again,

Wake me from the nightmares of eddies and dark currents.

I will never again be happy in these wet and wooden dreams,

I’ve tasted far too much wind to ever stand still again.

You woke me from the terrible sleep and taught me every dream,

You danced along the rings of my heart and swam my muddy veins,

Your voice is whispering wind and sweet grass in my ears.

I will nevermore grow stately and tall or flow placid and flat,

I will run and fly, I will swoop and dive,

I will rush down the stones of mountains and fly before storms of lightning.

You’ve been flying with me all along, my love, teaching me to use these wings,

We’ve been dreaming through the dark fields of night,

We’ve been wrapping each other in moonlight and mist,

Now wake me from all the dreams, my love,

For the dawn comes and the day of us is here.

Eric M. Petit