The Dreams of Swallows

Sometimes I see my dreams in front of me,
set like rivers running through the air.
They toss and whirl around my outstretched fingers
before I blink. Then they were never there.

So I wander through my restless mind,
through rippling, stone-hewn, darkened havens,
past empty lanterns in empty trees
into the fifty sunsets I've been saving

for white nights when time won't still
and thoughts won't pause to catch their breath,
and I'm left racing through worlds of forgotten things
until these sprinting shadows are all that's left

of a quiet child buried beneath her own fantasies,
those pretty bits and pieces of paper-thin wishes
slipping through her open windows on cold nights
like swallows sailing by with a fool's golden riches

and lies. She never realized how far she'd go
on her dreaming feet and opened eyes,
how long she'd walk through wondered worlds
and live off a reality so romanticized

that even poets cannot see it through.
That even wishers cannot make it true.
I wonder-- would she dream it all again
if she knew how dimly it would end?