by Al Drinkle
Despite drinking an excellent bottle of Mosel wine, I had my usual difficulty courting sleep last night. I tossed and turned for a minor eternity, seeking the elusive cool patch on the pillow and rearranging flaccid cat bodies. At long last, with morning looming nearby, I found myself in a verdant dreamscape.
It was springtime in Dhron and I was with Andreas Adam, sitting upon a bench in the Hofberg vineyard. We had no business to conduct, no viticultural seasons to discuss, no allocations to negotiate. We were just content to be two people, silent as the vines, sharing the thoughts that begin where words end. I felt no alarm when he became 1000 turquoise butterflies and flitted away.
I walked the banks of the modest Dhron river, discovering that it opened into a placid lake instead of emptying itself into the Mosel like it's supposed to. Transfixed by this unexpected lake, I was stirred by its beauty and envious of its serenity. After a while I noticed a figure facing me across the water.
It was Andreas’ mother, who had no name in the dream—though I didn't either. Holding a guqin in one hand and a pair of Felco pruners in the other, I knew that she was the lake. When she looked up at me, her eyes were filled with warmth and compassion, though she was hardly smiling. At this moment, the dramatic splendour of the valley overwhelmed me and I fought to hold on to the dream.
As I had on countless wakeful occasions, I marvelled at how such beauty could take on liquid form, and how fortunate we are that a family could be so adept at ushering it into bottle. How can we even call it "wine", these flavours that have not the least need for human mouths? They exist just as rivers and lakes and butterflies exist. They appear of their own accord, adding beauty to the world before returning into nothing, into dreams. We are merely fortuitous beneficiaries to find ourselves present in between.
More than on any prior visit, I felt consummate peace in this side valley of the Mosel. I reposed into the breeze-blown melody of the guqin and the aromas of volatile slate, my heart, mind and body melting together into elated calm. And then a cat stepped on my balls and I awoke.
The peopled realm of trial and peril awaited… Did I have any clean masks left, or would I have to wash one before going to work?
