Dream-Time Poem by Sheena Blackhall

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