(Before I opened up the prompt today, this happened: serendipity? I like to think so!)
I am in a hotel room in Harrisburg, en route to Englewood.
We drove through traffic, tractor trailers, to the wrong hotel to get here
And after washing my hands, heating up water, taking off my boots, and
Being still,
I turn on the television.
A Japanese woman is harvesting daikon radishes to make pickles.
She has a fire burning in a shed . There are thousands of drying daikons in the rafters.
Or are they bones?
I say to my husband, 'It's like a dreamscape.'
(I looked up an image to share with you all and found a link with a story: I love this line-
"The pickled daikon is an important preserved food that has for generations been eaten during the long winters in snowbound areas where food tended to be scarce. It was first hung over the irori of each household to dry because the snow outside made it impossible to fully dry it there."
A Dreamscape Haiku
the clouds above me
look like the ocean’s surface
am I in the deep?
The world is matte and blurred from smoke
or haze or the reluctance of dawn
after the longest night,
as if the land had tossed and turned,
then finally slept
and now can’t bear
the thought of light
so soon.
I walk into the sleep-blurred world
like into a dream.
I crunch my feet on frozen mud
to see if I’m awake
and puff great clouds of breath
to know that I’m alive.
A dog barks over and over,
Three short yips, then a vowel as long
as a rooster’s tail.
The dog crows and breaks the dawn
of the first day
after the longest night.
The dark lid begins to lift.
A blue eye peers through heavy clouds.
Today, I will pinch myself
and remember that I am awake.
Today, I will pinch myself
and remember to dream.
A Dreamscape for the Coming Summer
Color – blues, purples, pinks, with a sprinkling of greens, yellows, and oranges
Bursting forth from my garden
Butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds feeding from the riotous blooms
Tomatoes, peppers, peas, garlic, cucumbers, and squash
Basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender
Intermingled with the flowers
A cool breeze easing the summer heat
A tall glass of homemade iced herbal tea
My journal
My favorite chair
My dogs dozing in the sun
And me
Basking in the glorious bounty of the season
Overflowing with gratitude for the earth
Thank you Kaitlin, for your gentle guidance, encouragement, and invitation to dream.
Dreamscape
Across the explosive landscape of the south
in the time when voices rose again to say “no more,”
a young boy of nine listened to a man with a dream.
A booming, powerful, lyrical voice leading us through
a dreamscape of what should and will be.
Spirit voice, heart voice, voice of courage and truth,
the young boy listened with an open heart,
despite his parents warning:
That man is a troublemaker.
I knew trouble and I knew pain.
I saw the exclusion, the bigotry, and the hate;
A nightmare landscape, freedom and rights denied
Again and again.
I had seen the nightmare come to life,
and that little boy
wanted the spirit man’s dream.
In every age and time, dreams of a world in balance
rise into the light.
Cynics and power eaters label the witnesses foolish dreamers,
Trying to convince the world that their nightmare
of war, destruction, violence, hatred and shallow thinkers
should be our dream.
But we know better, us dreamers of love.
Ready to dance as gates are open,
walls are broken, hope is lifted;
Doomscapes become dreamscapes,
every song borne from love a symphony,
Our dreams blending together.
Beloved community dreamers, singing as one.
The other day,
I let myself dream
with my eyes wide open.
The world went on around me
as I slowed down, allowing
my tired mind to rest,
at play in dreams
and lingering
in quiet.
(Before I opened up the prompt today, this happened: serendipity? I like to think so!)
I am in a hotel room in Harrisburg, en route to Englewood.
We drove through traffic, tractor trailers, to the wrong hotel to get here
And after washing my hands, heating up water, taking off my boots, and
Being still,
I turn on the television.
A Japanese woman is harvesting daikon radishes to make pickles.
She has a fire burning in a shed . There are thousands of drying daikons in the rafters.
Or are they bones?
I say to my husband, 'It's like a dreamscape.'
(I looked up an image to share with you all and found a link with a story: I love this line-
"The pickled daikon is an important preserved food that has for generations been eaten during the long winters in snowbound areas where food tended to be scarce. It was first hung over the irori of each household to dry because the snow outside made it impossible to fully dry it there."
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2023/11/cad531bef2ad-focus-law-change-puts-traditional-japanese-daikon-farmers-in-a-pickle.html
Dreamscape
Somewhere...
In the vast untouchable world
A piece of me swirls
Untethered
Unmoored
Unbothered
Unmeasured
(inspired by my friend,
stef with an f.)
It roars upriver
yielding a full throttle wake
A cozy toasty bundled up flotilla spun like cotton candy into a
swirling twirling caroling
laughing toasting boasting
hugging dazzling sparkling
tinsel filled ho ho ho joy parade
of gumdrops and candy canes.
..christmas spirit...whooshing by..
Looks like fun out there.
"come all ye faithful"
the admiral yells out,
as he waves me over.
Watching from shore,
I curse and shake my head,
wishing i knew how to swim.
In the Yule Dreamscape
We are rich and free
as the winter mud, erotic as earth
and water suffusing each other,
bound as the alga and fungus
in bristly beard lichen. Subaltern,
soft, and intersex as the Pacific
banana slug, unhurried in crossing the trail
(no tires nor boots) unafraid, moss-fed.
In the longest night, wildlands link hands,
bridge the boulevards. We roam,
clairvoyant and godly as deer,
headlightless. With the patience of day
waiting to break, of winter’s trickling
submission to spring, we sleep
as the dead do, gone under
night’s loamy, mycorrhizal rug.
By dawn, I return: sweatered sternum
for your head to rest,
ringed hand for your nape,
candlelit kiss for your crown.
That Place Between
Somewhere between awareness and slumber lies the dreamscape.
Somewhere between reality and fantasy lies the vision.
Somewhere between day and night lies the dawn.
Somewhere between the headlines and utopia lies the hope
That people of good will can come together to strive for
That kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
-Karri Temple Brackett
12/22/23