The Unfettered Dream Page 3

dream my path still passes through the vision of infirmity and helplessness and death. My path still passes through a back turned on family. My path still wanders beneath the trees, and in the dream I seek out the people instead of remaining unseen and letting them pass. In my dream I teach, and I grow old. Waking, I am not old and I am not a teacher, only a dreamer, and that is my place.

  In the woods and among the stones, I wake one morning and know that my feet have been carrying me to a place that I did not know existed. It is chance, and as my mind tries to cast the illusion of order on it, I chuckle quietly to myself. If there is a reason, it is that he and I have something in common that guides us. If I wake aware of him, it is because I heard in my sleep and did not know that I heard.

  Below the high stone I had slept upon, beside the stream, is Old Holy Man alive after all. I walk to him and he stands to face me, a silver fish flopping on the point of his staff, dying.

  The fish struggles out his life as I bow, Old Holy Man bows, we embrace as a father and son would, we sit. We share our journeys and escapes. The fish, his passing having come and gone unnoticed, we finally rediscover and share.

  When we part, my other life on the skins from birth to death travels with him. He is the teacher, and I am only the dreamer. He takes his leave to the lowlands where there are many more people to hear him teach.

  I travel north, up the roots of the mountains and into their heart. I will die there one day, content in solitude. One day my dreams will follow me there, set free from the lips of an old holy man, and find my bones.

  See more from S. A. Barton on his blog at https://sabarton.com

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