Vernal Equinox 2009

Vernal Equinox 2009 - a reading (on YouTube)

Last night I dreamed I was standing on a knife's edge, a precipice. On one side lay darkness, on the other, brilliant light. The division between the two was so sharp it could draw blood. I stood on a narrow threshold, slightly dizzy, longing to embrace the light but fearing that if I turned away the horned king would pull me backward, consuming me in his fury. I stood like a deer before a hunter, unmoving, unblinking. Then the dream faded into uneasy sleep.

I woke this morning to a tornadic kitten clawing a swath of destruction across the bed. Amber light seeped through the blinds. A jar of Tupelo sunlight had overturned in the office, it's honeyed contents pooled upon the desk. The world beyond the window is softened by the morning. Light slants gently through the trees as shadows cling to every curve and crevice and the haze gives form to both.

Outside, the hibiscus has unfurled a bright red pennant, declaring itself for spring. Spider webs flash coded messages from the mailbox to the trees. Higher now, the sun sparkles off bright new leaves, a forest of tiny jewels, a private tribute to a crystal anniversary. A cardinal descends to the feeder then flits to the bare branched myrtle, sharing kisses with its mate. Flurries of oak flowers descend, forming drifts across the driveway like ropes of dirty snow.

Inside my sanctuary of glass, I watch swirls of steam rise from my coffee cup, lambent in the morning light. I reflect on my dream from the night before, and remember a similar threshold many years ago. One spring from Imbolc to the equinox, I haunted a wooden bridge across a quiet stream in a botanical garden at school with a novel between classes. On the near side was the domain of daylight, cultivated paths, constrained rivulets, maintained shelters. On the far side, the domain of night, fallen trees, the wilds, the clearings where we performed our youthful rites and ceremonies behind a veil of darkness. Below was the stream, always the same yet ever changing in swirls and eddies, rising and falling with its principal seasons, rain and dry. Upstream was the rope swing where we would splash once summer solidified its grip. Downstream were the dorms where soon I would go to live.

But it was the scene above the bridge that captivated me as I stared into the sky between chapters. At first the view was clear, obstructed only by denuded maples. At Imbolc, I saw nothing but the piercing blue of a crystalline sky broken by a web of branches. As the days fluttered by like pages of a unattended novel riffled by a spring breeze, I noticed a faint red blur clinging to each branch. The blur became a fuzz that each day became a little more distinct as tiny, red leaves unfolded to seek the sun, their winter slumber over. Week by week, I marked their progress as they grew then slowly transformed from red to yellow-green, half a shade each day. By the equinox, they were a full, bright green, their canopy completely shading the sky.

I relish the memory of those tranquil spring days after a series of harsh winters. Like the new, red leaves I remember that spring, I draw comfort seeking the sun, knowing that until summer ends I no longer need to fear the darkness. The wind outside brings changes. The night king's time is over; the sun queen's reign has just begun.


© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

Dreams

Last night I had a dream. Even within it, I struggled to find words to describe the vision I had seen.

I find myself in a dark and brooding old-growth forest. Not the bright, yellow-green of deciduous trees in spring, but the deeper blue- or black-green of the spruces, firs and pines of winter. Caught in their spell, I hear the whisper of a thousand voices, a thousand ghosts trapped in their needles and freed by the wind, the ghosts of a thousand trees that feed their young. Gray-dun birds of prey perch in their branches waiting silently to ride the voices and descend on any unsuspecting prey that scurries across the glade.

Beside the lea lies a fieldstone lodge with large, clear windows that reflect the dark sky. A patio of flagstones abuts the field shadowed by ancient sentinels. Who lives within the lodge? Are the raptors their familiars? Do they tend the trees and perfect green? No one is in sight but the place feels welcoming and well-kept. The stones and trees are suffused with peace. The peace you feel on a remote holiday you wish would never end. The peace you feel before you die.

Or wake to clutch a memory and struggle to recapture a perfect, fleeting moment. Like dappled water dancing on the ceiling of a lakeside pavilion. Or the broken reflection of the marshes beside the road that chase you home as you drive. Or two butterflies that spiral up and around each other in a double-helix toward the sky. Or a twilight contrail that transforms itself into a slow-motion meteor as it falls away from the sun. Or the shroud of fog fenced in by the quiet graves of a primitive Baptist cemetery while the rest of the terrain is clear.

All of which makes me wonder, which dreams are real and which are an illusion?


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Drowning

The dream always begins the same. The memory surfaces with a line from a book, a scene from a movie, the splash of the shower against my face. My feet dangle above open water. The world becomes horizontal, no topography but the waves. The contours lie beyond the horizon, or yards below with the boat.

Another memory rises. Another body of water, this one with a sandy bottom pressed against my face. Me holding my breath as though my life depends on it, which it might.

Exhaling slowly, I simulate drowning in this personal waterboarding, only without the board or the information or the medical team standing by in case I fail. Only the water and her weight over locked elbows pressing against my neck that leaves me no leverage but deceit. When I lay still, almost floating beneath her hands, her grip slackens and I am reborn, reentering the world kicking and screaming, never quite seeing it the same after the struggle, after seeing the expression on her face which reminds me that I am alive, unexpectedly.

And she wonders why I lie to her. That day it was the only way to survive. I know I should feel guilty, and often do, for both lying and surviving.

When we begin this life, we can see the bottom clearly. Gold and jewels strewn from other people's wrecks lay sparkling upon the ocean floor, waiting for us to reach out and claim them. We learn to snorkel, then to dive. Confident, we strap on our equipment and slip beneath the waves.

Immediately, unseen currents pull us. Sharks maraud us and eels snap at us from hidden holes. Coral fingers grasp at our air hoses, at our exposed skin. Jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-war threaten to entangle us in their tentacles.

When we recover, we find the sun has retreated behind the clouds. The water has turned murky, the treasure is no longer within sight. Low on air, tired and cramping, we return to the surface. Some exchange air tanks and rest to try again, learning from their experience. Others learn to embrace the sea.

Novels become short stories that shrink to essays small enough to send by e-mail, descriptions without purpose, fragments without context repeated endlessly like waves upon the sea. Echoes of a life drawn to its own reflection in the water, the words my nemesis and her curse.

In the dream there is no weight, only the perfect freedom of water embracing me like a womb, the ocean a mother willing to reclaim me if I let her. The shore is distant. Darkness nears. I only have to wait. Though before I am drawn to her breast, the hands of strangers pluck me from the water. But I continue to hold my breath until I wake on the shore, safe in my bed, the sea still echoing in my ears.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III