The Long Dreaming
On Human Consciousness and Time
This poem is about human consciousness
and the fact that we move through time
without fully understanding it.
⭐✨🌟
Each day we wake, live for a number of hours,
and then sleep again.
During sleep, the mind continues to work.
Memories appear and disappear without our control.
⭐✨🌟
I am thinking about the way the self persists
while the years pass.
People change, but they also recognize
that they are still the same person they were before.
⭐✨🌟
I am also thinking about death.
Sleep reminds us that consciousness can fade
and return again.
Death may be a final version of that change.
⭐✨🌟
The central concern of this poem
is that human beings live inside their own awareness
and cannot fully explain it.
⭐✨🌟
We continue living anyway.
We continue thinking, remembering, and questioning.
The self-moves through time until life ends.
This is the condition of being human.
About the Creator
Tim Carmichael
I am an Appalachian poet and cookbook author. I write about rural life, family, and the places I grew up around. My poetry and essays have appeared in Beautiful and Brutal Things, My latest book. Check it out on Amazon
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Comments (2)
Eloquent & insightful!
Tim, this is a profound reflection. 'The self moves through time until life ends' — that line captures the beautiful, tragic condition of being human. As someone who writes about the 'geology of the soul' and the sediments of memory, your thoughts on how the self persists while years pass really resonated with me. Thank you for this quiet, thought-provoking piece. Beautifully written.