Dreams Curve Around Reality like Streams Around Rocks

by M. Ait Ali

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Imagine you are sitting

Upon that one pile of silence foam, 

Listening with that spiral ear

Unto that which is veiled in pre-deposited dreams.

Imagine you are absent from your face 

And all the faces you’ve been mirroring, here and there—

Upon the all-told burbles of streams—

Inasmuch as the beauteous flees the goat’s feet

Throughout the crops of Moon and Sun. 

Let there be only one ear; one eye; one amorous thought:

Let them all be Heart and Mind, 

And no better or worse halves; no spilled cream in the doorways of agony and sorrowful memories; no darkness windows without the curtains of hope pulled to the side of your truth and dawn.

 

Imagine it all starts as a night-old tingling in your bluest toe—upward into your entire creased foot, which the distance enslaved—rising from that which is blue, into whom you truly are tonight: Mind and Silence and a tiny speck of Light!

 

Imagine it finds rest in the heart of what you are, 

What you were, what you will be;

Speaks in the fragrance of the ablest flower; 

Blots out your thoughts from the records of disquiet;

Prevades your senses, then speaks unto you

Like a foam-hearted Mother to her lonely and only Child:

“You’ve wronged yourself with so many crafty lies. 

Those were but filled jars. Leave them behind or break them with all the might whereby flowers open their buds. Seek the emptiest of them. Brim them over with that which is timeless. Carry them into the night ahead!” 

Imagine, then, how she would leave you to the sleeping beauty you are. 

Imagine, then, how you would awake.