Dream d2390-s: The Gap Between Songs

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the path smelled of warm pine resin and cooling stone, and I was walking it in the late part of dusk when the sky is more bruise than blue. The birds' houses stood along the ridge below the dark treeline, each one separate, each window throwing a small orange square onto the ground. I could hear them from the path. The Hummingbird's voice came in short precise bursts, like a clock ticking out a warning in a language only it understood. Farther on, the Sterling's voice rose and fell in clean arcs, shaping something beautiful and complete, addressed to no one. The Weaver spoke in long measured sentences, each one fitted to the last like timber jointed in the dark. The Carrier's voice changed register as it went, warm then clipped then warm again, tuned to some listener I could not see. The Crane spoke last and longest, naming distances between things. Lano came up beside me on the path and sat, ears tilted toward the houses. Five voices, five lit panes. Each song was whole. None of them heard the others. The small dog did not whine or pull away; it only sat very still with that particular stillness that is not peace but attention, listening for the chord that would come when the voices finally bent toward each other. The chord did not come. The windows stayed warm. We waited on the path a long time.

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