To write the following music-impression poem, I used a CD entitled, Sarangi: The Music of India (UPC 0 14431-01042 2). It’s a beautiful recording, and I highly recommend it.
The first part of my poem uses actual dreams I’ve had. And the second poem uses real-life experience.
Sarangi: The Music of India
Scott ____
Rag Bageshree
She meows as she wakes, time to feed her. Yet then she’s my wife, time to feed me. I roll over to touch her, and she’s gone. No, this is reality–don’t wake me to my daily nightmare. And I’m back in the surreal life I love. My sister, Elaine, is Mary–holding our infant, Jesus, as I watch for thieves in the Egyptian sand. Then I’m in a grocery store, eating cookies off a shelf, as a banquet of wealthy families looks at me with indifference. And I step outside, into a 1950′s darkness. I approach a group of rebels who welcome me in their stance, near a street sign. When they ask my name, I reply, “I was freedom, before they modeled you.” And though I’m as clueless as they, as to what I meant, they smile and offer me a beer. Now I’m back in a classroom at Mobile Christian School. My fellow students fill the room, yet there are no teachers–indeed no adults at all. I turn to Jamie, and ask her to go home with me. She agrees. When we return, I ask Denise the same, and she agrees. I take home and bring back one girl after another, until I hear a gavel. I am forty-five again, yet at the U.S. Capitol. Senators from West-Coast states declare secession from the Union. But before I can ask why, a senator smiles, and shows me to a window. He opens the curtains to an Ireland-green land, and I am there. The prehistoric people seem to say I’m related to them. And when I motion that I cannot understand their words, they direct me to a golden wall adorned with alphabetic characters unlike any I’ve seen on Earth. I’ll be here long enough to learn their language, to choose a wife, and hopefully to remember them.
Thumri
A rooster calls dusk into dawn, as I watch a train below in Brownsville. I walk on. I speak to no one on Cervantes, but the buried in the Jewish cemetery, to whom I say, “Shalom.” And as I pass the projects, I pray for the poor. Yet as I pass mansions on Scenic Highway, I scoff at the thought of praying for the rich–until I realize they have problems too, beyond the financial facade. And I pray the same prayer for them. Upon returning, I stop beneath an oak overlooking Escambia Bay. I stretch my arms skyward, and pray for myself. Then I breathe the knowledge that my waking life isn’t such a nightmare, after all.
Isn’t it strange how in dreams, totally nonsensical events seem perfectly normal? And time and space have no boundaries? I wonder if dreams are the true reality.
In my case, I really do wish they were!