A dreaming little girl wonders about the dreams of old people and old trees … They must be different from her own, she is so young.

DREAMS
by Hilda Conkling

DREAMING of lands far away
I lie on a smooth white cloud
Drifting along the wind
Lazy and slow-pouring above the trees.
They bend . . . a quiet rush . . . a hush . . .
A murmuring . . . a rustle and swerve of leaves . . .
They are dreaming other dreams
Because they are old.
I do not know how it is
Dreams come to the old.
New worlds beginning when the old life ends,
Changing summers and autumns
With kind faces,
Spring-times that run away smiling . . .
Old people and old trees dreaming
Make me wonder.
There is not very much in my own dream today
Excepting thoughts that blossom in summer.
Whatever I tell you, O my mother,
You know I am only a little girl
Wondering. . . .

Source:: Hilda Conkling, Shoes of the Wind, A Book of Poems (1922), from the digitisation of the original edition on Internet Archive.

Previously published on Agapeta, 2017/02/18.