A Dream

The world is dressed in fog
As I walk with a friend
Self-aware of sleep we slog
To some uncertain end

My friend and I converse in rhyme
As we approach our destination
Though I speak, the words aren’t mine
Control of my thoughts – now on vacation

We go inside and reach our goal
A letter there for us to read
Word on paper speak to our soul
A distant warning we must heed

On paper, pink, a message sent
From a friend who lives abroad
She writes about a future event
Is this from her, or me, or God?

The warning tells us of two men
And with them doom will follow
Judgments for the world begin
Sometime soon – perhaps tomorrow

A word to the wise for seeking eyes
Now given to you freely
The men you seek, two languages speak
One is Greek, the other Swahili.

---

I suppose this poem actually requires some explanation.

All the way back on Easter weekend of 2004, I had the weirdest dream of my life. It was largely as described above. It took place in a white foggy setting. In, the dream, I was walking with someone to a mutual friend’s house. I know the name of the mutual friend in real life and she moved to the place from where she sent the letter after I had the dream (though I had good reason to know before the dream that she would eventually live there.) I do not know with whom I was walking and talking. We arrived and read a note. The dream ended with the above stated ominous warning about two men who are identified with those two languages. The entire dreams – from the conversation part to the note – was entirely in rhyme.

When I woke up, I felt like my brain had been hijacked and that it was like I had watched a movie in my sleep. I obviously remember the dream pretty vividly even today.

To be clear, though the poem above is not the rhyme from the dream. It is something more like a combination of personal biographical record keeping and an homage to that cool thing my brain did during my sleep one time. The piece is – if you will – a tribute.

I do not purport to believe that the dream is actually prophetic. I am at present unaware of two people on the world stage who easily fit the described profiles (though one could make a case for a few people.) I suppose that it might be prophetic, though, and that would be simultaneously ominous and exciting. I might also have just eaten something strange for dinner that night. In any case, this is not a regular occurrence for me. In fact, it was a unique event.

If any of you have ever had a dream wherein it felt like you lost control of your own brain, I’d love to hear about it.

Restoration

Bright light will reveal what is hidden
The Darkness won’t always prevail
Lost crowns cast aside to the midden
Will gleam and once more be worn well

The Remnant is singing a new song
The Body remembers the Way
The People embattled – once more strong –
Are driving out giants today

The sleepy will soon now awaken
To old things reborn and made new
Restored will be that which was taken
A Kingdom reclaimed from a coup

_______________________

An enduring idea within humankind is the notion of a lost paradise. 

That golden past might be subtle, or even somewhat recent. ”The Good Old Days” usually just refers to the time of the speaker’s childhood. Beyond that though, there is a collective sense of something better hidden within the deep past of our species. We can no longer see it, or much of the evidence that it was here, but something in the collective human unconscious tells us it existed and that we should look for it. The Abrahamic religions all look back to an Edenic paradise. Other people look back at Camelot, Atlantis, Sumer, the Ancient Egyptians, or some other time when “the gods” may have walked among us.

Can the echo of a memory be grabbed, made to reveal its secrets, and restored, or will it always elude us like smoke through our fingers?