This is the place that was promised
when I went to sleep
taken from me when I woke.
This is the place unknown to anyone,
where names of ships and stars
drift out of reach.
The mountains are not mountains anymore;
the sun is not the sun.
One tends to forget how it was;
I see myself, I see
the shine of darkness on my brow.
Once I was whole, once I was young . . .
As if it mattered now
and you could hear me
and the weather of this place would ever cease.
- Comment
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Leonard Durso 
I’ve had dreams of being trapped in this situation and when awake I decide my preference would be never to wake up if this was the world at which I would arrive. Even fully awake I’ve felt trapped in this place and it sometimes seems I am awake in my own death the same as the dream characterizes. I think it may be my fear of entering the world of age decline at 74 now. The decline never reverses so it’s the same whether awake or dead. I resent this tragedy. The poem is right on the marlk and captures my disappointment well and deeply saddens me when I must accept that there’s no exit from the the distasteful now.
I was going to make a similar comment but then I read yours so I’ll leave it at that – except that at 80 I have a few years on you.
On me, too, at 77.
I, too, experience dreams like this. A sign of aging, no doubt. Mark Strand writes beautifully of this and other aspects of aging. I take some comfort in reading him.
Perhaps the dream is an archetype but the fact that you provoked the thinking on my part is the sign of a very successful poem. However, all these aches and pains and medicines and doctors are not dreams. They are a very distasteful reality and I must add grumpy to my list.
I’m glad you like the poem but sorry for the pain it conjures up.