Meditation #19 -- dream journey

One night in dreams I drifted up, I left myself behind,
Abandoning the world itself, the green and warm and kind,
To fly as fast as thought toward the outer dark and cold;
In dreams to flirt with madness feels adventurous and bold.

It felt like eons passed in moments, scattered stars flew by;
The emptiness seemed infinite, until my tiring eye
Picked out a somber sphere ahead, unlit amid the black;
To see it close I dreaded, but in dreams you can't turn back.

And so that distant dayless other Earth enfolded me;
I walked its streets, beheld its towers, helpless to unsee.
Its people look like us, but are unlike us, soulless, hard;
A world of ghastly wisdom, perfect peace by madness marred.

I little understood the peace they'd won, the price they pay;
Enslaved by slaves, inverting paths of predator and prey.
I heard the steely rails a-clatter, through unending night,
To sinful citadels where nothing dies and wrong is right.

Above that world a crystal goddess flies, to guard its ways,
To shield its folk from justice, the eternal curse that slays.
No punishment can reach them while she still has eyes to see!
And she it was who sensed me, and in mercy set me free.

And so I dream-flew homeward, eager through the frozen dark,
Until ahead, beside the golden Sun, our warm blue spark --
I woke.  But to this day that horrid dream is wreathed in fear;
If it was real, the crystal goddess now knows we are here.