Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM
The World Dream
In the dream of the whole world
She notes
a pair of red-tailed hawks
a wedding of white deer
an uproar of ravens
a terror of coyotes
a pile of wives
a slumber of cellos
an apotheosis of poets
a maverick of boys
a hippo of fresh baked macaroons
beside a tiger mug
steaming with peppermint tea
In the dream of the whole world
She hears
a cacophony of jellyfish
the whirr of worried children
the giggle of crickets
the hoot of a tugboat
the late cry of a lighthouse
bellowing in the fog
In the dream of the whole world
She finds
the cracked stone of a Mayan calendar
the dark cave of all beginnings
worms working their way up
into the wet light after a storm
In the dream of the whole world
She realizes
nothing ends, nothing can
the lake freezes and melts
rain falls on Honey Island
the salt marsh becomes mangrove
the red branch becomes pelican roost
the bird egg becomes alligator food
What lives in her heart
flows from her eyes
puddles at her feet
soaks into the ground
is sucked up by the root of a fruit tree
where everything once born is reborn
like the secret inside the pit of a peach
In the dream of the whole world
She witnesses
a cargo of slaves
a camp of Jews
a factory of incest
a murder of lies
an asylum for lovers
a colony of hunger
a nation of bullies
a parade of lepers
an oil slick of dead salmon
a string of exiles
a case of rebels
a box of torture
the shadow of power
moving its armies across the land
In the dream between these dreams
She awakens
to the heart’s difficult longings:
the peace protest
makes war with war—
those speaking against againstness
are still not free—
We are form informed by family
embodied beings, skin bags of light
animate, restless, hungry, searching
held by the formless possibility beyond diety
and without thinking we may be caught counting
what is at long last uncountable—
the depth of human love
incalculable in the turning universe
poem by Ann Filemyr
If you would like to hear Ann read her poem please click here.
About the Moderator
