Dreams Among Trees

third of a series of poems based on extraordinary dreams over the past two weeks

In dreams you can have

as many lovers as you want; and I

have three, maybe 4 if I also count

that guy I see sometimes looking

in through a window, eyebrow cocked,

waiting for one of us to make a first

move in one world or another. It is

fascinating how every love, real

or imagined; takes a different shape,

like cedars and junipers and oaks

in a hostile landscape.

 

My first love is liquidambar;

in real life he steals kisses in

restaurants but only when we are

alone, alone; in my dreams, he takes

my hand in a cloud forest and says,

simply, I guess maybe I am not afraid

of you any more. And those simple

words say more so much more

than any three books of poems

dedicated to the opening and celebration

of a lover’s body and mind and soul;

voicing a celebration that has been

always understood more than spoken

and as nourishing and exalting

as essential- as the rain, fog, land itself.

 

My second love is oak, deeply

rooted in propriety but also stubborn.

In my dreams he takes the poems

he shares with me over coffee

and writes them on shorelines where

crystal waters lap at sand like tongues

of men exploring women’s bodies

throughout time. I imagine water is

a midwife to love for him, that his

reservations drown in the sea and he

is a grown man remembering how

to be a boy getting his hands dirty

for the first time in a woman’s secrets.

 

My third love is a cedar from a foreign

land; in my dreams we are dining in

cafes of a Mediterranean City. Al fresco,

I am wearing something white and

sheer and he is feeding me fruit and

chocolate from the table at breakfast.

We bathe in the majesty of museums by

day and climb trees to watch the sun set

over volcanoes and islands; we hold hands

shyly like adolescents in the streets

and dominate each other’s bodies like

fire in the sheets behind closed doors.

 

My fourth love is a cherry tree;

eyes like water and ideas and words

like the wind and scoured landscapes

I imagine meeting him in. He is a man

who never found his home here on

earth; I dream of meeting him under

the watchful eye of Orion in some open

field in the high mountains; he is so

strongly connected to the skies that the

breezes dance for him and night birds

give their assent for whatever it is

we are about to do with and for

each other. He is a mystery whose

friendship feels at times

like a path to the home

we all forget we came from.

Author's Note

translated from my original in Spanish

Reviews

[h d e rushin]

Freud said that "we are everybody in our dreams". It means that our thoughts and feelings are cast into characters, personified as different personalities. Trees, I like to think, are the greatest lovers. The third stanza is the Porn of the 50's before men made porn dirty and insincere. You know, where blouses were unbuttoned and silk against exploration was rhythmic scheme:

"I imagine water is a
midwife to love for him, that his
reservations down in the sea and he
is a grown man remembering how
to be a boy getting his
hands dirty for the first time
in a woman's secrets" oh s**t!

Dearest: you've captured the essence of
virtue from the discalced timidity
of a young lover's baby steps. They say that Saxony
is an easy way to a trees heart lol.... wonderful poetry ..dana