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 |