\nThe Wind is ghosting around the house tonight
\nand as I lean against the door of sleep
\nI begin to think about the first person to dream,
\nhow quiet he must have seemed the next morning<\/p>\n
as the others stood around the fire
\ndraped in the skins of animals
\ntalking to each other only in vowels,
\nfor this was long before the invention of consonants.<\/p>\n
He might have gone off by himself to sit
\non a rock and look into the mist of a lake
\nas he tried to tell himself what had happened,
\nhow he had gone somewhere without going,<\/p>\n
how he had put his arms around the neck
\nof a beast that the others could touch
\nonly after they had killed it with stones,
\nhow he felt its breath on his bare neck.<\/p>\n
Then again, the first dream could have come
\nto a woman, though she would behave,
\nI suppose, much the same way,
\nmoving off by herself to be alone near water,<\/p>\n
except that the curve of her young shoulders
\nand the tilt of her downcast head
\nwould make her appear to be terribly alone,
\nand if you were there to notice this,<\/p>\n
you might have gone down as the first person
\nto ever fall in love with the sadness of another. <\/p>\n
Billy Collins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight and as I lean against the door of sleep I begin to think about the first person to dream, how quiet he must have seemed the next morning as the others stood … Continue reading