Dreams and poetry

Last Sunday morning I had a dream so vivid I woke to find myself raising my blanket up to let the dream cat next to my body and I was surprised (for ten or fifteen seconds) that no fur friend was there. But then I reoriented myself, rolled out of bed, shut the door, and headed into the kitchen. Most mornings I get up first, slink around the house while Jerry sleeps. I like to read at that time of day with a hot cup of coffee and only the sounds of the birds getting louder as dawn approaches. We have had a spate of freezing weather, which is good, as it has killed off something that shouldn’t be growing right now, a particular fungus with many names but the one I like best is “The Devil’s Dipstick”. When I showed this particular picture to Jerry he said, “That’s how every horror movie starts.” Followed by “You didn’t touch it did you?”

I’ve been reading poems (sorting poems) for the past two days getting ready for a reading this coming Sunday, I’ll be attending virtually in a hybrid event, there is an in-person reader and me coming live via Zoom. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this all works. For the past year or so I’ve been attending readings via Zoom or Facebook, or whatever platform allows, as a listener and a reader. It’s been fun. It has also offered the opportunity to see poets I wouldn’t be able to – a favorite reading was from poets in smaller towns in Ireland.

Another opportunity came about from a gallery here in Illinois, last year they asked for poets to respond to art this year the artists are responding to our poems. I can’t wait to see what happens. Mid-February the art goes up, right now this will be all be virtual as well as we can’t get the pandemic to end. Thank you, no mandate having anti-maskers and vaxxers and people who don’t get how science and illness work.

Anyway, here’s a poem I’m going to read Sunday (I hope):

Passing

The underside of the rainclouds
are the same silver gray of the cat
who died yesterday; the same glowing
gray of the pigeons along the railroad siding;
the same pewter that Lake Ewauna
has become today, as the White Pelicans
rotate in the wind, ready for landing.

Today’s breeze holds promise, the latest
snowfall is above the basin floor, and a field
planted early last week has slim green lines
teasing the soil. The calendar says late April
but the aspen are thin and bare, shocking white
when the sun hits; the daffodils four inches high
have tight yellow buds like fingers pointing west.

Today will bring every weather, and the tuxedoed tom
will sit on the stone monument built for his partner
and endure every shower, in sad mourning.
And I think of Mr. Burkemeister who debated
planting sweet peas the spring after his wife died,
who said they always bloomed on her birthday 

and wondered aloud how could he savor that day any longer.

                                                                        (Kiki 💕)