The Tall Country

There are these dreams you never want to wake from. Last night you sat in a theatre, watching a movie, marveling at Spain, unrolling before your eyes, a memory of the Pyranees you never wanted to leave, dream mountain images, dream lakes more impossibly grandiose and gorgeous than anything in waking life. Then, starring in your own movie, the one the Id spins for your nightly entrapment, there was no transition: you did not step into the screen, as in a Woody Allen imagining. There was even a landmark the mind holds to station in a later story, so that in the unknown there's something known. The mind muddying reality, as if reality wasn't muddy enough. The mind up to its old tricks: layering comfort in the tall country so you never want to leave. Your last leave taking, maybe something like that.