Plants do not dream because they do not sleep, but birds dream: they dream about being eaten by larger birds, about being caged by humans, about flying so high they knock their heads against the base of heaven. Then they fly higher and turn into angels. They dream all that and when they wake up they think about worms and sometimes they dream about worms.
And fish dream. They dream about fish hooks, about being translated into an alien element, and then they wake up and feel the water against their sides and are comforted.
Trees dream too, and plants as well.
They have that long winter’s sleep when they dream a long dream. They dream up a saga. Their dreams are slow moving, they stretch through time, they go back to the days when trees ruled the earth, and sometimes their dreams are gashed and violent when they feel an army of axes against their upstanding steadfastness and their sap flows. It’s the life of the dream that’s so hard to understand. Birds are birds. They live. We kill. But in a dream bird life could kill. And the fear is the same, the needless anxiety, and the swimming and flying through massed memories that all peck at you.
