10
You are the dark song
of the morning...
But you were also the red song
in the night..
When the child's mother smiles
you see on her cheekbones
a truth you will never confess
and you see how the child grows
timidly, crouching in corners...
In your dreams she's a tree that will never come to leaf..
in your dreams you have sullied and murdered
and dreams do not lie.
This story is so familiar across our ravaged landscapes - such rage our species takes out on one another and our earth. In my childhood home there was rage barely restrained and I have in my home now a young man whose father did not know restraint. In me, the anger simmers. Yes, it's a matter of degree as I have never hit anyone as an adult. The beast is within, she cloys at me to believe that someone else is responsible for my anger. If I can just lash out, all will be well, all will be well. And that to me is how hell is born. And gets born again in each moment we drift from love's bonds and in each child that grows up around our hurt. But there is another dream other than anger. This is the dream upon awaking that refreshes the morning, that is not a dark song born of red anger, but a dream of light, of sons, that go not to war or to fight, but to love the children within us all. Each morning the sun asks again as she peers through our windows, isn't it time to wake up?
Where do you have violence in your life? What are your dreams like?
My life is pretty free from violence except for reports in newspapers or on TV. My dreams used to involve me being chased or prevented from going somewhere, such that I had to go through a maze or manipulate people standing in my way.
ReplyDeleteNow, when I dream it is more serene. Often I am disappointed when I wake up to have to leave the lovely experience I was dreaming about. Of course in my dreams I have no limitations to deal with. I can dance, skate, run in the surf or even climb a tree with my book to read in my dreams.
I think it is fascinating the way our brain works while we are asleep on a task or problem we are working on when awake. When a choice needs to be made, I can sometimes remember the choice I made in my dream. Or, it is like de'ja vue when I lay out the pros and cons while I am awake to come to a the same choice.
I teach poetry at FSU, and this poem is actually about a father who is sexually abusing his daughter and how he destroys her as a person.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Thank you. Pretty hard to misconstrue.
ReplyDelete