A Ramble

. I'm full of Thoreau (what an obtuse, wordy, falsely misanthropic, bearded man), and Sylvia Plath, of Emily Dickinson (that slippery, dark-haired flirt of a woman- darting all around me with her dashes and unexpected capitals) and Willa Cather (whom I was going to write about but simply couldn't, it's all too dear to my heart, that love story that ended in the orchard), of William Butler Yeats and Vincent Van Gogh (I asked SKY if Vincent would rather I have a copy of his sunflowers, or a real sunflower. SKY told me that, as Vincent had moods, it depended which mood I asked him in. A sunflower mood! Well then, said SKY, as anyone in a sunflower mood would know, Vincent would want me to have a sunflower, not a painting of a sunflower. I said he was probably right. I'd rather have a real sunflower and pretend Vincent loved the same one that to have a copy of a dead man's painting and pretend he made it only for me. I'm sure he made it for himself, and for the sunflowers.). I'm full of ecofeminist writers, and Gene Stratton Porter stories and of her limousine death, and of the phantom smell of hookah smoke and charcoal, I'm full of that kiss between Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman, of dead terrorists and dictators, of ribs jutting over swollen bellies. I'm full of the piercing wind of Ireland and wide wind of Alaska, the wetness of Vermont and salted fertility of Maine. I want to talk existentialism with SKY, but we're not together tonight, never on Sunday night. I'm full of longing, don't you see. Longing for new ideas, new words, new women and men who are nothing like me but whom I adore. I want to drink tea and read poetry all day with speckled sun over my thin lap. I want to marry and have my hair be a sunflower, to mirror SKY's name. I want to try a drug that makes me laugh never-ending, those unexpected fits I get when barely anything is funny. I want to have children named Henry and Samuel and Vincent and Alexander and Esther-Anne and Evelyn and I want them to all be like their father, but to have my eyes, or my hands. And we would all live happy ever after, though we don't exist. And nobody would drown themselves with pocketfuls of stones, and nobody would be exiled. Isn't that a thought, huh? Thoreau says he never met a man who was alive. I hope he didn't die to find he never really lived, that would disappoint us all, Henry.

Night on the Hill

Where is my peace?
And where is my tranquility?
I no longer find it here.
The first time I hear monsters beyond the tree line
Trying to disguise their movements with the rustling of fallen leaves.
But I hear them- monsters, timid.
The geese are at the marsh, cackling to one another
catching up after this last long stretch
I hear one fly away from the rest, despondent
What happened to that one goose?
Smells pound against my nerves- clothes detergent, manure, my own skin.
Scent always was my greatest weakness.
Not even these hills can calm me now
I see them, flirts with veils of mist
Rolling repetitively against the dull atmosphere.
Where is your comfort, where is your passion and your flaming tresses?
I ask the moon for punishment and she gives me none
Only that gentle smile that says
When I am dead and lying on her breast
Then will I be at peace.

First Confession

I wish everyone was Jesus, then
Because they'd be compelled
To forgive me
For all my sins
As soon as  I showed
Repentance.
A confession list is
Almost a poem.
Read it, then-
Lips ring
With all the sins that rhyme
Make it ceremony
Give it celebration
And you'll be forgiven.
(Just a bit of penance on the side.)
Icon lips are pursed
Too small to tell
Why my sins
Are sanctified.
I wish everyone was Jesus
No sin as ceremony
Only this life,
These lips- pressed against
More than saint's lips.

Like Dickinson, That Flirt

1.
Memories are dreams-
Dreams collected, scribed
In back rooms of brains
Pulled out of boxes-
Boxed reality, now-
More real than That
Which I cannot capture
With my broken butterfly net-
The candlelit dreams
Revel over me-
Reality flutters

2.
Broken seadollars- swallowed sandbars-
Padding particle footprints-
Where- When-
Have you been?
The past has prepared you- For me
As though you knew-
I would be here- My soul,
You are here
The shells and husks are bound to me

3.
I had a dream, one night-
We were back again
Soft-visioned- soft feet
Pacing on the sand plains
Of Popham-
Grey wisps of living water-
Brushing whispered souls
Heads bowed down-
And up to search for coins
Architecture of sand
Yelling silently-
With- Of- joy
"We're rich now"

Blue

Just a flash of blue

And there is a butterfly-

photo by my father

Is this not a dream?

A Story for My Memories

            This starts with a secret that I’ve decided not to keep. When I was little, I would confuse my sleeping-dreams with reality. I thought I really did fly that time, I really did see that animal crossing the road, and I really did have that conversation. I couldn’t keep my waking life and my night-life separate, the dreams I mistook for reality were so realistic- I could see, touch, taste- and the sounds I could hear were the most vivid. My brother still teases me for thinking I could fly when I was ten.

            But I am still me, and this still happens. I constantly have to check with SKY to make sure I wasn’t dreaming about that walk we went on yesterday, about that discussion we had about farming, about his brother asking us a question. Many times when I ask, they are dream-memories. It doesn’t help that over time, my dreams have become much more lucid- sometimes I am able to control my activities within a dream. Much of the time, I am simply aware that I am dreaming- somehow- and I get frustrated because I don’t like dreaming, I just want it to end. That usually results in me “standing by” in a dream and waiting for it to finish.

            But when I get really into a dream (usually when I’m incredibly tired before falling asleep) I still mistake it for my real life. I don’t know how I feel about this inability to disconnect my dreams and my waking life. Some people don’t believe me; others think I should try to work on my lucid dreaming… But in the end, my dreams and my life are intertwined, my brain is strange.

            I dreamed that we were at Popham Beach again, SKY and me. In the dream, it wasn’t daylight as in reality, but the darkest, brightest red and purple glow over everything. The sun filled the near horizon with a band of gold and made the islands stand out shadowy. Droplets of sea-spray filled our eyes and made it clearer to see the ocean. We vibrated in time with the tide, which was receding. (When we were there, the tide had been coming in- we had to hurry in from the sandbar to avoid being stranded.)

            The only people on the beach were few and quiet, walking with purpose. They made soft eye contact with us as they drifted by; they welcomed our presence and we were glad of theirs. It made the dream feel more alive.

            It seemed I was forever away from SKY as we walked together on the sand- in the sand as our feet padded gently, toes pressing pockets in the flat universe. He was only a dark spot way over there; I thought, but- then he was right next to me, a gentle smile as a gift before he walked to the edge again.

            But it was as if we were holding hands, walking together even in physical dream-distance. The water licked our ankles, washing us. I didn’t know how we would ever be able to walk into the sea. The water seemed so dense, so solid and sure. SKY walked farther than me (he always does), and the water enveloped his legs like a wool blanket, wrapped and winding.

            We bent our backs, eyes up to the sand, looking for sand dollars, just as we had when we were there. The storm had rolled in, but missed us. It didn’t miss the sea animals. Jellyfish and crabs, seaweed, and the elusive sand dollars were decorating the sand. Somehow, we stepped on none. We could see through this misty world, and the sand dollars glowed softest white as they laid on their deathbeds.

            I yelled out to SKY when I found my share of the round beauties. He heard me, and I heard his foggy voice call back over the winding coastline. When our search was satisfied, we retreated to our resting area- somehow we had a small tent that could take the battering of the ocean winds and the salt spray. The glow of this world filled the tent as well. He and I sat together in silence, looking out to the rounded water, knowing that we were wanted here. “We’re rich now, baby”, I said. We had left the sand dollars on the beach.

            I don’t know how many more dreams I had before I woke in the morning. I don’t know how much time had passed during the dream, or when it occurred in my sleep cycle. I told SKY I had a dream about Popham. He said he was jealous of my good luck, and I remembered the photos he had taken of the beach, the forever lost photos- of me, of the birds, our collection of dead sea skeletons, the islands, the view… And I remembered the sand dollars we left behind in the dream. Either way, I’m rich.