Waking Dream

Lynne Michelson wrote this poem one morning upon awakening with a vision… appropriate for activating you.

I am flowing fury disguised as water.
Crashing down waterfalls
A torrent past sharp rock outcroppings;
I irrigate fields, raining down hillsides
Till the earth becomes a muddy mush

I am a sweet and damp tongue
Disguised as earthly ground
I lick every seed
popping it open in trust
Lifting its tiny head to the light

I am a belly of fire
Disguised as the sun, volcanoes and lightning
I burn with energy and crackle, spark and electricity
That fires up each and every planetary life

At one time my firelight warmed human faces,
Invited stories, sharing, and wonderment.
Clearest water caressed their bodies and throats with holiness
Earth danced with grains fluttering in the breeze
Growing plentiful bread and cake

I was the light that woke them each morning
And the moon at night that shone while they slept
I was the dusty bed places where they lay their heads

I wondered with them in the deserts
in the marshes
and in the plains

Until

My right side got hacked away
Flattened rainforests; now wastelands

They made things grow too fast and
Animals prematurely fat

I am deteriorating.
I am sickening

My lungs are weakening, less breath
My shoulders are heavy with the weight of the poor
My heart is pumping with an irregular beat

I am weary
I am tears that can hardly be shed for the debacle that is man
My insides twisting with stifled life
The births I want to give are hurting

I am a deep sadness

I am a bird, fingers around my throat
I am not singing as much
my song has been stifled

I uncross the legs of my certainty
I give room to the rot in my gut
I ask breath to be a steady wind of hope
I ask the bear to smell a subtler life force
a possibility of wind change —

blowing through canyons of ancient stone
moving through small gardens and organic orchards
streaming through rapt young minds in the world’s cities

How are you walking this day?
Are your eyes open?
are your fingers feeling what they touch?
Are you tasting your self? Your toast? Your milk?
Are you seeing? Seeing the natural world aglow this day? The play of the light as you drive to the supermarket? The boy who crosses the road slowly?

Are you praying?

~Lynne Michelson

April 2010