"it was a dream," by Lucille Clifton

"The Fire Within," Ysabel LeMay

it was a dream
by Lucille Clifton

in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could i have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This.  This.  This.

[Image above by Ysabel LeMay]

Poem via Poets.org

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I just love this poem, but it also scares the pants off of me (as well it should!). Lucille Clifton is such a master--not just of poetry, but of inner awareness and the ability to speak what seems true, but is not always said. This poem is indeed terrifying (oh, the unreached and impossible potential of our own greatness and power), but somehow it's also reassuring: we will all feel this "This" at some point, and hopefully, it will fade, like the dream that brought it to us. 

"Horses Running Fast," by Shane McCrae

"Whisper," by Duy Huynh

Horses Running Fast
by Shane McCrae
 
We married in an open field a wide
And open field a field of wild and run- / ning
horses wide a field of horses run- / ning through
we married in an open wide
Running and full        of horses open
field / And in we married in        and in we mar- / ried in in
one direction they the hors- / es they
disguised the wind as horses in the wind/The horses running
fast in one / Direction
as the horses running through        / The horses as the horses run- / ning through
and each of us as me and you / As horses running fast
In one direction and
no animal outruns its past

[Image above by Duy Huynh]

Poem via Verse Daily

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I just love Shane McCrae's poems. There's no one writing like him right now. If you haven't already, please rush out and read his newest collection, Forgiveness Forgiveness. Here's a brief review I wrote of that book for Columbus Alive, the local arts newspaper.

 

"The Shortest Night," by Yusef Komunyakaa

from "A Forest Tale," by Gabriel Isak

The Shortest Night
Yusef Komunyakaa

I went into the forest searching
for fire inside pleading wood,
but I can’t say for how long
I was moored between worlds.
I heard a magpie’s rumination,
but I don’t know if its wings
lifted the moon or let it drift
slow as a little straw boat
set ablaze on a winding river.
I learned the yellow-eyed wolf
is a dog & a man. A small boy
with a star pinned to his sleeve
was hiding among thorn bushes,
or it was how the restless dark
wounded the pale linden tree
outside a Warsaw apartment.
Night crawls under each stone
quick as a cry held in the throat.
All I remember is my left hand
was holding your right breast
when I forced my eyes shut.
Then I could hear something
in the room, magnanimous
but small, half outside & half
inside, no more than a song—
an insomniac’s one prophecy
pressed against the curtains,
forcing the ferns to bloom.

[Image above by Gabriel Isak]

Poem via Poetry, (September 2010).

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When I read Yusef Komunyakaa's poem, I'm reminded of how mysterious and beautiful poems are. The weary, half-asleep speaker throws lovely and scary images our way--not being able to fall asleep indeed traps us "between worlds." This ending is one of those perfect moments...the insomniac's vision "forc[es] the ferns to bloom." This is a poem of inside and outside, and of a crossing between those boundaries. I hope to carry this poem's music with me today.