Today is the last day of "words" and tomorrow is the first day of "dreams" over at Creative Every Day.

I've been up to so much I don't know where to start with it all, so I'll take the easy way out and mix words and dreams here.

What the Dragon Said

There is merecy here:  in the space between

was and will be, I am.

My dreams are full:  small  creatures

colored brown soil, white rock, red

clay wish to kill me.  I am always

running and the angles are always

wrong.  I fall down; blue blood trickles

into red water.  Something

unseen joins the parade, clicking

flat teeth together like castanets.

In the monring I bake bread.  This is

a different story; I take it from a different

time.  Outside the trees are slick

as black eels – water does that –

rain, tears, storms that end

and don't end.  Even the stones

white as doves, bright as

peacock's feathers, have their part.

I dropped some shiny along the path,

token markers for the game, but children

took them home, saved them in dusty

corners.  Not returning, I remain.

If I were a bear, I would sleep with no dreams, lulled

by the obsidian crow's raw song.  The stones

would return, gather round me, speak of moist

earth, red fire, blue ice.  Instead, awake, I roll

the last two in my palm, think of small potatoes, sugar

crystals, eyes.  This place is made of stones

staying still, falling down.  It measures

time the same way that stars do.  Yesterday

I learned of Riverkeepers who hear the river's story,

know her voice so well they can take words

from her mouth and speak to the deaf

who can only imagine the sound of stones.

Then, I rediscovered swimming; learned

how one sweats, even in cool water.

There is a time when I think I must drown, but

breath comes.  Mercy has a cost.

(from "Shift" by Tammy Vitale, available on Amazon.com)