May 2019
Note: My dreams are vivid and often informative, particularly in times of grief. The poems here are a part of a larger sequence written a few years after my husband was killed and most recently collected in Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach, 2018. www.donnahilbert.com
Traveler, Return
Slowly, the landscape
of my dream is changing—
the sandy berm, the ocean
to the end of sight—
unlike the old garden, bright
trellis of bougainvillea,
us safe in thorny profusion.
***
I dream that falling asleep
on your side of the bed
will lead me to you in the night.
I leave a map unfolded
on the table.
Will you mark my route?
***
Last night you arrive
at the terminus of dream
wearing a miner’s hat,
flannel shirt, and jeans,
covered with dirt,
smelling sweetly of sweat.
I struggle to hold you,
but you pull free
saying you want to shower,
have traveled so far,
have so much to wash clean.
Traveler
You come at night to say you’re leaving,
have dreamed of freedom for so long.
And more, you love another—old familiar song.
I call for Mother in my grieving,
but in her own dream, she’s not speaking.
The children, uninvolved, won’t say you’re wrong.
Our friends are not surprised, say don’t prolong
the misery, the pain, by not accepting
that you’re gone. Because I refuse to hear
the first time you say you really have to go,
you speak again, louder than before, and wear
a new love on your arm, gesture meant to show
you have no love for me—I must forbear.
The dead are even colder than we know.
from Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach 2018
Traveler, Return
Slowly, the landscape
of my dream is changing—
the sandy berm, the ocean
to the end of sight—
unlike the old garden, bright
trellis of bougainvillea,
us safe in thorny profusion.
***
I dream that falling asleep
on your side of the bed
will lead me to you in the night.
I leave a map unfolded
on the table.
Will you mark my route?
***
Last night you arrive
at the terminus of dream
wearing a miner’s hat,
flannel shirt, and jeans,
covered with dirt,
smelling sweetly of sweat.
I struggle to hold you,
but you pull free
saying you want to shower,
have traveled so far,
have so much to wash clean.
Traveler
You come at night to say you’re leaving,
have dreamed of freedom for so long.
And more, you love another—old familiar song.
I call for Mother in my grieving,
but in her own dream, she’s not speaking.
The children, uninvolved, won’t say you’re wrong.
Our friends are not surprised, say don’t prolong
the misery, the pain, by not accepting
that you’re gone. Because I refuse to hear
the first time you say you really have to go,
you speak again, louder than before, and wear
a new love on your arm, gesture meant to show
you have no love for me—I must forbear.
The dead are even colder than we know.
from Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach 2018
© 2019 Donna Hilbert
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