Dream-Time

I close my eyes. I walk a river bed, Around my calves, each wave gleams like a fin I am a child again, unwooed, unwed There's nothing in the trees around to dread My cousins guddle trout, tanned, farming kin No need to work yet for our daily bread This is the path in dreams I often tread Around, the thrushes raise their merry din The Future's an unprinted book, unread I think I am a mountain goat, cross- bred With the bright salmon leaping down the linn I slide down mossy stones, my water-sled I store that magic place inside my head. That time when sunshine was my second skin My body baking on the heath, outspread Now, I'm a crone, one of the nearly-dead But like a shepherd, I can call them in Those times, who to the fields of Past have fled And lead them back, on memory's golden thread