In The Beginning

When the dream came and you stood inside it Shyly introducing yourself, you were surrounded by fog Then later, the little plastic ball changed color But only part of me could believe it You held no reality for me, and though it seemed I ought to feel Some anticipation, some premonition I was an austere, alien landscape; and you were an intellectual problem An idea, a theory; though assuredly mysterious When I heard your gushing heartbeats, for the first time, It seemed like some ancient ritual that I had forgotten my lines And you even held five fingers up, to prove you had them (and I thought, so I shall give birth to a single hand..only one) Your existence was a conundrum Until that moment they held you up to me Separated from the pod of my body My oxygen fount no longer sustaining Your eyes beholding me calmly, almost amused You looked to be at least a million years old, and very wise- And the atmosphere of the room changed, became more complicated With the addition of someone only just arrived, breathless, from the outer regions: Too peaceful to utter the explosive cry of confusion And the scent of some rarefied vapor clinging faintly It was then that your reality registered: More real that anything mineral, vegetable, animal; Out of the whole of creation's kingdoms, you were bestowed In a kind of reversed benediction, And I was not dreaming.