Meeting the Dreamer

They call me the dreamer, he said,
I having asked him who he was
who'd burst upon my idle time above the tide line,
lost among the marram grass and sand dunes,
watching the sea-whipped waves play in the bay.
Strange boy: man's body, girlish face that now
and then would greatly age and then be young again;
and covered head to toe in moths and dragon flies
that when the face changed would fly off
to form a cloud that followed him -- or was it her?
No answer ever came in all the years we met.

Why do they call you that? I asked.
That's not high science, sir, he said.
Because I dream! I am the one
that has dreamed you and put you in
this dream time and dream place. I gave you
what you're pleased to call your life.
I thought about this deeply for a moment as I watched
the moths and dragonflies dance lightly on the waves.
Then: I'm just a figment in your dream?
I asked. He nodded his assent. And yet, he said,
We were great friends before I dreamed you here.