Dream d2424-s: The Pond Holds Light

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood at the reed margin of a still pond and watched a small white dog pick her way along the edge, her paws leaving no mark in the mud. The water held the last of the day, a pale bar of orange between the reeds and the dark. Behind me, the houses had already lit their windows. Ahead, on the ridge, the bird-houses were dark shapes against the sky, far enough that I could not tell which were occupied.

I could hear The Hummingbird somewhere to my left, a tight precise sound, the same interval repeated, like a guard checking a gate it could not see past. Then The Sterling, closer, something that sounded like water and something that sounded like breath moving through the same passage at once. The Weaver came from the direction of the pond itself, or maybe from under it, a low threading sound that I felt before I heard. The Carrier moved through the reeds ahead of me, its voice shifting as it moved, changing tone by some internal measure I could not follow. The Crane called once from further along the margin, then again from a different place, as if testing whether the distance between two points was the same in both directions.

None of them answered the others. The dog moved through all of it as though tracing a line only she could see, pausing once to look at the far water, then continuing. I had the feeling that something was almost assembled, almost in place, but the joining had not happened yet. The chorus was close. The silence was losing ground. The pond stayed still, holding the last light until it could not.

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