Dream Song
The same night, whitening
The same trees. We of that time,
Are no longer the same.
- Pablo Neruda, Tonight I can write
I am dreaming about you, Abbie,
As the world submits
Itself to sleep again and pale
Night repaints all
Life into a probable
Miracle:
Another street, perhaps,
A path of possibility repairing
Loved things lost or broken,
Back into the sanctuary of sight.
I am dreaming about you, and of my grandmother,
How her breath drifted, coughed
Away from her body, leaving behind the church-
White hospital bed and downcast
Windows;
You, and my injured left leg, the chancy
Subdivision moons, basketball,
And that sour scooter accident—the face, scent, shadow
Of all that has abandoned me.
I am dreaming about you, and of October,
The clumsy minutes I’ve pieced
Together, thinking, that things must have
Their own places in the world,
That what’s here and not here are entirely
The way things are:
Aratiles, distance, that poem you sent me
Which I could not understand.
Even then, I knew that the best and worst
Would come and go,
That loss never really makes sense:
Not death, not my grandmother,
Not even you, Abbie. Night recalls all
That will never make sense
Again—which seems just perfect—
Splendid as in hours when
I close my eyes and dream that I am walking
Straight again, while
My grandmother sits back, laughing
At a memory or a joke.
In these times, I swear there must be
Something bigger behind
All the senselessness life hands us,
That we can hold on
To things we’ve lost through the changes
They leave:
Absence of laughter, fleeting memory of a voice
Or name, dream, a world
Of photographs, each picture accepting
What the mind can’t understand.
October 9th, 2006 at 1:24 am
“each picture accepting
What the mind can’t understand.”
it’s nice to read a poem from you again. at first I thought you posted berryman.
October 9th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Things change for whatever reason there is. Dreams are, at the very least, an illusion, but more so a reflection of what we hope and seek in life.
I’ve known you, no matter how fleeting, and I believe you’re a good man.
Nobody can ever keep a good man down. Nobody can ever put you down all your life.
Whatever it is that you feel, no matter how painful it is, forget it, move on, and be whole again. After you’ve done that, go back to that part of your past and rekindle that passion that will make your life complete.
But before you do that, be whole again.
It would be unfair if you will give what you don’t have. You can’t give yourself if you don’t have you.
The poem is great. It ionspires, it rekindles; but love isn’t just something you say.
Love is action. Love is movement. Love is reality and not just some kind of delusion. Go for it friend!
October 19th, 2006 at 12:50 am
post mo yung the truth about the sky.
superpanalotothemax yun eh.
tsaka paki add ako… ingrowntoenailed.blogspot.com.. di ako marunong eh.. Ü