the eternal dreamer

for the next two days

i am living on the thirtieth floor

of a hotel in downtown toronto

it's to do with

my work

my role

~

my days

are circumscribed by time

it's how things get done

it's how things get measured

and yet i know myself

well-enough

to know

that i exist

outside of time

so i make a point

of finding

the timeless

and making it my acquaintance

for i love

the timeless

in whatever form it takes

we hear him and take him among us like a wind of music,

like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;

we crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,

we pour in a sinister mass, we ascend a stair,

with laughter and cry, with word upon murmured word,

we flow, we descend, we turn. . . . and the eternal dreamer

moves on among us like light, like evening air . . .

all words conrad aiken from the house of dust