POEMS/ Way of the River

Way of the River

When there are no dreams, 
sleep is dark as the river
that flows beyond my house, mind
 
and body yielding to its steady glide
as if I were floating from the source to the mouth
and would go on to cross wide seas that never
 
reach land, a passage with no coming back, a sleep
I cannot summon or refuse, a sleep
where desire does not dwell, where pain is gone.
 
When the dreams come, my mind pretends to sleep,
and the body opens to strange places
where seeds I thought I'd sowed with care
 
sprout odd and unfamiliar plants, sorghum
and sassafras for snowdrops, or poison oak
where peonies should have grown, a baby goat
 
in the nursery crib, a flight to Barcelona
landing on Saturn, an avalanche of snow appears
on a mountain in Oodanatta, a heat-wave  
 
at Vostok Station. When these dreams come
and I awake, I don my waders, take my buckets,
and to the river. I wash my dreams away.


From Migrations, 2013