When Angels Dream

When angels dream

Beside the calm of heaven’s stream

Within a golden forest glade

Where branches overlap and braid

The silver starlight’s gleam,

What sights enshrine your haloed heads

And blossom in ambrosial beds

Of purely known unconsciousness?

What dreams arise when all is less

Than where you lie?

My dreams are less than yours, I think,

For my imperfect thoughts will shrink

And shrivel, fallen leaves that dry

Beneath a swollen sunlit sky.

But when your thoughts are close at hand,

My own proceed to fly and stand

Like trees that drink from deeper stores.

The golden forest stream explores

The higher realms that angels share.

With you as guide, I’m nearer there.

And so, I ask, so selfishly,

If once, tonight, you’ll dream of me.

 

 

I was in northern Ghana for work the past two weeks, and I wrote this poem on my way home, during a short flight that brought me back to Accra, the capital city, before continuing on to Kenya. I had the title phrase in my head as a starting place, but the poem eventually became a bit more personal. In my mind, it became about asking questions related to people who have passed on: Where have they gone? In the place where they are, do they dream? If so, what are their dreams? Do they look back toward the people they knew during their lives? And, if they do dream of us, can we feel it?