This Land Is My Land:

As he heard his last rattling breaths leave his tortured lungs and the slowing slug of his heart,

He closed his eyes and looked within.  There before him, on a post, was an owl.

White as snow it was, with a beak sharp as a witches tongue and eyes which pulled

The light into their darkness as would a black hole.  It hooted a soft welcome and blinked slowly.

They stared at each other in hazy recognition and then the owl flew to his shoulder.

He felt the razor talons dig in gently, reassuring, familiar as they looked up and stared in awe

At the twin moons which raced in the dusk, dancing in the cold dark, kissing them both

With their hasty shadows.  And yet still the sun lay a warm blanket across the land.

The owl placed its head against his and snored gently as dragons flew

Purposefully to who knew where.  This could not be, for he was dead, but it was.

The music started, so quiet at first he thought it but an echo of a memory gone astray

And then came a sound, almost a cry he had always known but never heard.

His soul vibrated, the tones joining the harmony of this new old interconnected world,

And as it built, twined and danced, the colours came, pale but there and slowly bathing

This old new environment gloriously, as an innocent child colours a picture book.

And a distant bell tolled, tolled for him and he laughed aloud, joyous and uncaring.

A unicorn passed a little further down the valley, a small black cat lying across its back,

Stretching its wings elegantly.  The beast stopped, lowering its shimmering horn as it drank from 
The Crystal-clean stream.  As he wept at it's beauty and was lost to its enchantment he heard a

Distant voice say, “He's gone. there's nothing more we can do.”  His heart leapt with joy.

The owl woke and took to the wing, leading him on past sighing trees and sun-kissed glades   
Where redolent flowers sang in welcome.  He ran on by a tangled knot of otters

Playing by the stream, waving laconic paws of recognition as his soul completed its

Soft surcease from his old world.  He was one of them, here in this place, free.

And so he wandered, following the owl, through a land of enchantment, wrapped in

Its sure embrace.  A dragon standing by a large blue dog laughed at his pleasure and blew

A smoke ring which hovered over his head and burst with the smell of roses.  The owl landed

On the dragons head and the dog wagged its tail.  Suddenly he knew.  He was home.