Dreams A Third And Final Pern Poem Poem by Gabrielle Ciarann Roniyah Baer

Oh, Shells!
Oh, Shards!
It was just a dream, again!
But … so fine a dream!
I rode the glistening green back
Of a fire-lizard,
Doing things no dragon ever will!

In and out of the smallest weyr-windows
Swept we two,
Down dim night-glowed corridors
Peeping into chambers
Long unused,
Or spying on sleeping weyrmates,
Curling close, closer, closest.
We soared past all, giggling,
Too tiny to be heard
Too quick for their gaze

Through halls filled with master’s maps
We flew
Eyeing colors, lines and shapes world-sized to us,
Happily, we gazed on snoozing wherries
Tickling noses, ears or toes, with a tiny touch
Madly through twilight kitchens
We raced
Dipping a finger here, a wing there
To taste
Scooting past the great cook fires.
Magically we sped to the hatchling’s cave,
Where the huge dragon queens shone
Like suns, even in the dark
We watched them sometimes shifting,
Stretching, and resettling,
Just barely their jewel gleamed eggs to show
Impossibly, the dragonets within.

We would have fled, elated,
at the sight,
But one small form, wetly green,
Looked straight at me,
Stretched a bit and smiled
Inside my head!
I woke up,
Heart flying,
Nerves jumping,
Joy bounding,
But truly,
Wasn’t it only a dream?


written in October,1989