Remembering the Dream That Remembers You

She visited a friend whose brother was celebrating a birthday, though she never learned his age. Mid- to late- thirties, she thought he was. To honor the occasion, the brother had orchestrated a full music and dance show, directing his friends as well as hired performers in a musical fete.

 

She sat on a bench near the front. The performance took place in a sunny meadow, which, having been recently mown, smelled of green grass stems.

 

A group of eight singers came first. Wearing vaguely Elizabethan dress, they sang (oh, so beautifully and in such delicious harmonies) a medley of Shakespearean songs, beginning and ending with "O mistress mine, where are you roaming?" As they sang they leaned in to each other and then varied the arrangement, forming a fluid series of delightful living tableaux.

 

And then dancers appeared in the background, costumed individually but similarly, in earthen tones. They danced with simple steps and with much energy, at one point moving sideways in a line before her as they stared intently into her eyes.

 

She awoke remembering colors and smells and ethereal sounds that she hoped would accompany her throughout her waking day.

 

Can a dream simply be, and not be forced to carry a meaning?

 

 

Copyright 2012 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

The Upcoming Consecrated Free-for-all

It's Spring! Re-awakening. Renewal. Rebirth. So let's re-think a few things.

 

Let's throw out the stick-in-the-muds, those in sober black. Let's throw out the preachers whose somber words evoke eternal punishment, who create fear of the wrath of God. Let's throw out those black and gloomy thou-shalt-nots. Throw them out, I say, and let the fun begin.

 

Start with color. There's nothing forbidding about color. Sun-color. Sky-color. The red of the autumn maples. The parti-colored greens of mixed forest and dappled meadow. The light of the silvery moon.

 

Let 'er rip, is what I'm trying to say. In the service of Spirit, in the glory of the Lord, let it all explode in a dance of joy. Make this day—this moment—a time of prayerful joy. Or is it joyful prayer? Well, aren't they really the same thing, prayer and joy? Open it up. Enter into it. A free-for-all. A donnybrook of color running riot through the town.

 

Every soul is dressed in its brightest garments. Every soul colorfully displays its ties to Spirit, wearing horizontal stripes, diagonal stripes, hearts and stars, squiggles, flowers and leaves, and plaids of all stripes. Colorful design is one way we connect to the divine. Design. Divine. See how they rhyme? They obviously belong together. We want swirls and straights and spirals and circles, squares and cubes and diamonds, crystalline growths, and lines that mimic broken grass-stems. We want to dance together until the whirling colors become the blinding light of the eternal.

 

Let 'er rip! I said. Let the games begin. Dance till you drop. Make music with your feet, your hands, your throat. Make music of swish and jump, stretch and bend, yodel and howl.

 

What's to lose, after all? Why would we NOT celebrate in a free-for-all? Is it undignified? Dignity has brought us nowhere but here. It's definitely time to let go of "dignified." Bring on the glory of movement and color. Bring on the clanging of cymbals, the timbrel and dancing, trumpets, clarion calls, shrill two-fingered whistles, hoots and ululations and screeches of joy.

 

Let 'er rip, I say.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Unconscious Writing

The poet said, "Little Missy,

lose the consciousness if you want to write a poem."

So I said,

"Begone, consciousness!"

And here I am putting down words,

waiting for that unconscious

(and thus important) word.

Watch me.

See what I spy with my little eye.

 

Still waiting for that first unconscious word.

Waiting.

Oh, maybe that itself is the word: waiting.

I am a lady in waiting.

No one says "lady" these days.

I am a woman in waiting.

What do I await?

 

(Next word, please.)

 

The end.

Godot.

Dog.

A happening.

An epiphany.

The first robin (it has to be a robin that I myself see,

not someone else's robin-sighting).

Will a cardinal do? I have already seen (and heard)

a cardinal.

 

(Still waiting. Next word, please.)

 

Still waiting.

For the Robert E. Lee, perhaps.

Is that where this poem is headed?

Down to the levee?

Who could have foreseen that?

What strange journeys come

from the unconscious.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com