I was dreaming in my dreaming
God knows a purer view
As I surrender to my sleeping
I commit my dream to you
The power to dream to rule
To wrestle the world from fools…Fred Smith/Patti Smith
First Dream of You
by T. A. Fry
First dream of you, since your sudden passing,
I spied you walking briskly in a throng,
Signature bobbed hair brown, youthful, classy,
Talking to a friend, moving merrily along.
I tried weaving through the teeming crowd
To greet you. Such joy welling in my throat.
I can see you laughing, but it’s too loud
The city noise drowning out those pleasing notes
The surrounding clamor another shroud.
I shouted, waved increasingly concerned
This chance meeting, so vivid, might soon be gone.
While the starveling world around you burned
In your brightness, as it had always done.
You turned, looked into my eyes, then vanished
I awoke stunned, tantalized and famished.
I enjoy how a single word can set my writing in motion. Its been over three years since my Mother died. But it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I had my first dream of her after her death. I woke up completely aware of that fact and it made the experience even more vivid. I thought about the dream that week and over the course of a couple of days this sonnet emerged. The first couple of lines came quickly and it stalled. Then I came across the word “starveling” in a book and the rest came together. It is not an error that this is 15 lines. I wrote multiple drafts in which I kept it to the standard 14 lines, but in the end I preferred the pacing of this one. It is not the only 15 line sonnet I have written. Sometimes you have to let the words decide.
There are many pictures of my Mother where light seems to be radiating from her. She had that way of bringing energy into a room with her presence. Her birthday is today. She would have been 87. Fourteenlines.blog is 2 years old this week as well. Thank you to all who visit and share my love of poetry.
Fourteen Lines 