I wish my mind could function for longer
without my body getting tired.
I wish my body knew how good it feels
to always go to bed exhausted.
I wish I were always exhausted
so I may wake up refreshed.
I wish I could wish for things outside of myself.
I wish I could always fall asleep to a
gentle violinist.
I wish secret admirers were not so secretive.
I wish my dreams would write a book for me.
I wish it would be an instruction manual.
I wish google understood me the way
my genius button in iTunes does.
I wish I could remember more.
I wish I remembered to write every day
rather than simply composing lines in my head
that will dissipate like sand in the surf.
I wish I knew how to pack my life into 16 boxes.

Once I knew a lawyer who was honest.
Once I knew honesty was best to offer with restraint.
Once I thought I dreamt a future, but I’m not sure whose it was.
Once I thought, I could do something other than this.
Once I questioned where I was going.
Once I forgot the difference between past, present and future.
Once I imagined a lynch-pin holding my life together.
Once I removed the lynch-pin.
Once I watched a movie in French and loved saying ‘Allor’

Now my cat announces he is ready to sleep.
Now I can feel the breeze from the evening air.
Now I feel the violin’s strings resonating in my empty fingers.
Now I wonder why I say these words.
Now I am ashamed of reading more than I write.

I remember when a minute felt longer than that.
I remember little.
I remember arbitrary information of no importance.
I remember what it is like to feel the future.
I remember to touch carefully and tread gently.

I have lied about lying.
I once announced I was 16^th in line for the crown.
I have pretended to be trusting.
There are people who do not know who I really am.
I lie every time I open my mouth and do not say, “peculiar”.

Mountains move.
Clocks melt.
Cloaks fly.
Rings shimmer.
Curtains dangle.
Burrows empty.
Windows shade.
Final moments finish.

I ponder on this world of men
The dreams they string on fraying rope,
While sitting in the Faerie's Glen,
Small sprites that wing from faith to hope.

There is a place below the hills
Which dips beneath and out of view,
With sloping rocks and greens that spill,
Small leaves that stretch from roots to dew.

I see it in the ewe who climbed
the steepest rocky crag again
and in her coat, it lies entwined:
the hope that fills the Faerie's Glen.

I wonder at this world of strength,
so simple to forgive the pain
Afforded all who live the length
And breadth and fall and rise again.

Such musings on this world of men,
The dreams they string on fraying hope,
Resigning still to love again
And soar from love to faith to hope.

While sitting in the Faerie's Glen,
I ponder on this world of men.

Faerie's Glen, Isle of Skye, Scotland. September 2007.