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?

The Dreams beyond the Dunes

To cross the threshold of the dunes

With straw-green grasses waving in the wind

And glimpse the crystal crests on blue-green gray

Advancing far until the tides rescind,

Each layer breaking over layer

And tumbling toward the steady shore,

Rumbling then releasing all its spray

As it splays across the sandy floor,

Reveals a mirror for the lives

That come and go, yet linger on

To soak into the souls of those

Remaining on the dunes when they have gone.

And one who stays is wondering

Where waves will wander after they have passed

That far off, strange, unknown horizon.

What currents come? What dreams will last

To reach the ancient shores of Avalon,

Where what was once, one day may be again,

And all transform to queens and kings

Whose lives of love will be remembered then?

 

 

My grandma passed away on Friday night. She was 99 years old, and she felt ready to move on. I was in some other parts of Kenya this week, on a trip preparing for some work we will be starting soon (I'll be sharing some pictures, and at least one other poem, eventually), and I found out as I was traveling back to Nairobi yesterday. During some of that long, all-day drive, I wrote this poem, which combines some ideas I've had in my head for a while with this more recent news. Those ideas relate to some time I spent with my family at the beach (Stone Harbor, NJ), which was a special vacation spot for my grandparents as well. They also relate to some concepts from Arthurian legends (the island of Avalon).

 

One more note: I had a dream last night, in which I was on a walk with Grandma. This was nice for at least two reasons. First, she's been in a wheelchair for a while, so the fact that she was walking was significant. Second, after I woke up, it made me think of the hymn "In the Garden" ("And he walked with me..."), which was a favorite of hers. We had talked about me playing this hymn at her funeral. While I won't be able to do that right now, it was nice to have the experience I did in a dream - sort of like the end of the poem suggests (which, I'll reiterate, was written before that dream happened...)