Awake

Waking slowly from a summer’s nap on a winter day, the weather must have fooled me, I did indeed dream a summer dream. Three children in a room—two to stay and one meant for the outdoors. Under the guises of punishment, and with blindfold over my eyes as father leads me out into the hall (blindfold being my blanket across my eyes in the waking world), we come to the dogs’ pen: one small and black, the other golden and rising larger than you might expect into a near lion sized stretch: freedom awaits. One bites the other’s mane and father hushes them from their excitement. I must have been, in the dream before this, good somehow. A full stomach from breakfast perhaps. In all cases I have risen to stretch the lion stretch and play with the lion’s bite for the day. Warm waking summer nap in winter; there’s the reason for rising: play.

conscientiae morsu: the bite of consciousness; the apple, the lions tooth, awareness of death.