Dave Bonta's "Missionary" catches a mind in the blurry moment between sleep and waking. The speaker says that in this state they become "a far wing," a drifting, distant thing that is hard to pin down. It sounds like a feeling of being loosened from the body, hovering somewhere out at the edge of yourself.
Then the poem turns playful and strange. The speaker's "mission" is to find "a blind river / in a book of colors." The task is impossible, since a river can't really be blind and a book of colors has no real water in it. That is how half-dreaming works, though: logic slips and images swap places. The title adds a quiet joke, because a missionary usually has a clear purpose, while this one is on a vague, dreamlike errand.
The mood is gentle, hushed, and curious. Nothing is urgent. The speaker seems content to wander, and the poem invites us to enjoy that uncertain space where imagination is still in charge.