The Maynard
Spring 2015

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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