The Gentle Dream of Elysium

I wake to golden light spilling over the fields,
a warm glow brushing against my skin,
soft and endless, like the whisper of dawn.
The air hums with quiet laughter,
voices drifting like petals on a breeze,
calling me forward into the unknown.

I do not remember the road I walked,
nor the weight I carried before I arrived.
But here, the ground is soft beneath my feet,
a path of marble and morning dew.

Strangers greet me with knowing smiles,
as though they have waited for me all my life.
They wear the sun upon their shoulders,
their eyes bright with something I cannot name.

A river gleams like polished silver,
its current steady, its depths untroubled,
and when I kneel to drink from its edge,
I taste nothing but the sweetness of time.

The fields stretch far beyond my sight—
a world untouched by sorrow or decay.
Golden stalks bend at my passing,
yielding as if I am meant to walk here,
as if I have always walked here.

I meet a woman beneath the laurel trees,
her fingers tracing words into the bark.
She speaks my name like an old song,
a melody that does not surprise me,
though I do not recall telling her who I am.

I should ask how I came to be here,
why the sky knows no storm,
why the wind never howls in mourning.
But the thought slips from my grasp,
like a thread unwinding into the dusk.

Ahead, a great hall rises from the earth—
its columns kissed by ivy’s embrace,
its doors wide, as if inviting me home.
Figures stand upon the steps, waiting, watching,
clad in robes that shimmer like the stars.

One of them steps forward and smiles,
his voice rich with kindness,
his hand resting lightly upon my shoulder.
“You have walked a long road,” he says,
his words soft, yet certain.
“You may rest now. You have earned it.”

Something flickers in the depths of my mind,
a memory I cannot grasp,
a truth that lingers just beyond my reach.
I could ask him what he means—
why my name feels carved in history,
why my heart beats with a quiet knowing—
but I do not.

Instead, I step forward,
into the hall, into the light,
into the dream that welcomes me whole.

And I do not look back.