When I Watch The Living Meet

Not much sleep last night. When I did manage to shut my eyes for a few minutes of agitated REM, I dreamt I was 20 again, and I was living inside A Shropshire Lad, by A.E. Housman.

This poem kept resounding in my head:


XII. When I watch the living meet


WHEN I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,

If the heats of hate and lust
In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long.

In the nation that is not
Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
And the hater hates no more;

Lovers lying two and two
Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
Never turns him to the bride.

Bed

I am not sure how well this one works for you, but it seems to summarize my feelings today very neatly. Wendi believes it is a little bleak...


Bed


How improbable the whole thing now seems:
the vast expanse of blue, the air, the grand-
iose freedom of feathers, birds, dreams
lazily searching for a place to land,

watching as the earth assumes a face,
fixating on soft features, like a friend,
a river bend, a tall smokestack, a trace
of cotton smoke billowing from one end,

a lake of slate below a buoyant cloud.
How distant, how abstract, how beautiful!
You wonder if the water is allowed
to sparkle so outside a dream until

you hit the surface, crushing every bone
inside your pillow—shaken and alone.

The Thief

This morning I woke up with a chill at 6:43am, the covers dumped in a colossal blue heap on the floor, and a slight headache: the victim of an all too vigorous dream, I suspect.

Whether it was a bad dream, or a good one, I cannot say, since I am terrible at interpreting symbols.

It did leave me with an idea for a poem though. So, I suppose, I should be grateful to Heaven for that...

The Thief

On nights like these—
So dark, so cold—
Are fires lit
And stories told,

While in my bed
My lover sleeps.
And I wake up
With icy feet.

A cough, a twitch,
Then all is still;
And one is left
To contend with a chill:

To wonder if
Humanity,
As cold as he,
Might turn to steal

My comforter
To make itself
More comfortable.
It’s possible.