‘Visitors’

I roll over
Deep dreaming in the velvety darkness
A light dazzles, bewildering, terrifying –
I shield my eyes, I wake –
Ah, it’s the moon, the full moon!
So immense, beaming beneficence
Through my window.
2am.
The garden darkness,
redolent with spring murmurings,
scents, mysterious shufflings and chirps.
What’s that?
A drifting shape behind the hedge?
Noela perhaps?
Flipping through some colour swatches
While regaling an entranced audience …
Or in the shade there, behind the shed
Carolyne? Wielding magnifying glass and teeny brushes?
My sleep befuddled eyes drift to other shadows …
A leap of joy!
Is that not Marg? Flourishing an energetic brush
Between swigs of cognac?
And over there, is that not Kris in her Cap-tein costume?
I know, I know, I’m sleep drugged,
That wondrous half world …
But my Visitors, what privilege!
I must write, must write, where’s my paper?
I stagger and crash against the writing table
In my haste – wait, wait for me!
Gone, gone now …
Too late, the millisecond has passed.
Reality returns, the leaden heaviness …
The sadness of loss.
I return to bed, but sleep does not come.