31. The Dreaming Land

I dream of spring, when the sky dampens

the seeds of gathering heat, the diving crow

aims toward what was just born, and

even the driveway gravel glitters in the stark

white light between storm and night.

I dream of the winter’s black-and-white landscape

scribbled green, punctured by the maroon tip of root

in a field cleaned black with fire while

the cottonwoods unfurl their pale green hearts.

This land dreams sky, a shifting infusion

of shadow on cloud, despite the unreliability

of rain or clarity. The deer dream fawns.

The fawns dream flight as they walk the through-line

of the horizon. The horizon never stops dreaming,

its sleep a progression of filtering color through space.

The dream always dreams possibility

juxtaposed against decay, lightning, first

redbud blossom or starling feather stuck on a rooftop.

The rooftop dreams, belly up, to the sky,

its dream a song of shelter and risk.

The sky dreams light rolling away from dark,

dark rolling away from light, expansive as sorrow

that permeates the porous souls of everything

from weather to the dog left alone in the living room

while I step outside into the dizzy of bird call,

flocks pouring down onto branches

swollen with the hard dreams of blossom.

— Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the poet laureate of Kansas, the author of eleven books, and the founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, where she teaches. She makes her home just south of Lawrence, KS., and she’s one of the featured poets laureate taking part of Poet Laureati: A Convergence of U.S. Poets Laureate, taking place in Lawrence, KS. from March 13-14.

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