Book of Daniel   We wait, we yearn, we slip ever further from the dream. Your mighty kings sleep unpronounceable in the concordance, your vast empires become crosshatched traces on an inset map, troubles buried. Fishing for the thunder of waves yet unrolled, our stiffened fingers bring up empty nets.   But you, choice of kings, chosen of God, what dreadful parleys charmed the beasts, muzzled their bloodlusts? What surrendered faith could wrestle time's snake, fed on its own tail, and grace you shrouded trust of recompence and whispered patterns of the weave; what sun blazed your eye and made men believe?   We read: an eye like yours, clear and curved just so could focus all light -- future, present, past -- and burn blindness from the world eye. But cataracts grow thick again; we cock our heads for tremors, then turn to our own echoes . . . and hungry eyes gleam at us. We wait, we yawn, we sleep -- but do we dream?   © Michael Fleming Granada, Spain October 1984