Shadows On The Wall

I awoke from a nightmare

And rolled onto my side

Staring blankly at the wall

In a half awake stupor

Misty vapors wove and unwove

Eerie patterns in my sight

Was I awake or asleep?

I could not determine

I lay there as if intoxicated

Mesmerized by what I beheld

Like watered ink being diffused

Upon watered paper

Spiraling, twisting, undulating

Melting and reforming with

The gyrations of some witch dancing

In a mist shrouded glade

Was I dreaming or was I outside of it?

Viewing the spectacle from elsewhere

I contemplated painting what I saw

Upon canvas; watercolor or oil?

As I had done with the visions

I had seen behind my eyelids

I then perceived doing a poem

About this spectral, this shadowy thing

I was witnessing from half closed eyes

There was a light or was it fire Orange and dim on the verge of my sight

From whence was it coming?

From outside my dream or within?

I reached out to touch the apparition

Was I in a dream or was it me reaching?

It’s hard to tell between the worlds

Ah! The light blinked out

As my hand protruded from my linens

I am actually in the real world

I then proceed to solve the mystery

What am I seeing upon my wall?

But the shadows cast by moonlight

Through my bedroom window

The waving and undulations are

But trees stirred by the wind

The shadows but folds in

My drapes and sheer curtains

The watery expanse but my outside wall

The far coastline but the cross bars

On my window panes

Ere the mind produces such

Imaginary pastoral scenes

My mind seeks to see

That which is sublime

But reality is not as pure

Shadows are real and

Represent something but

They are really; nothing at all