It is such a vivid mystery
a flowing constant change
It would be somewhat scary
but for your perceptive soul
Soured smooth vivid mystery
A flowing eternity
A stranger who is somewhat scary
Smooth-sailing journey.
Why is this dream still so vivid
And displaying in my night brain
Over and again over decades.
In a surreal setting that melds Times Square and The Grand Concourse.
With buildings mostly dark
Street lights reflecting off shiny pavement
and sidewalks
I walk in the empty streets
I'm alone on the night streets
'Glad of that, 'don't want a dangerous stranger lurking
My legs are strong yet tired, but I have plenty left
My legs are my greatest physical asset, for better or worse.
I don't know where I'm headed
But I want to be there, 'keep walking at a good pace.
Dusty aired steep shadow
Shoes heavy reigned
The empty place in
Time to search my night brain again
Ponder the walks behind my shoulder
Vivid with gushing candour.
I came home just when it started to pour
Timely shaken feet
Shifting close by the livid door.
Waking with the dream fresh and clear
As is the air, (it rained so hard last night)
Out with me goes my dog, to be
Among the clear crystal voiced Thrushes
In their Woods, which is theirs for this half of the year
I wonder what they say
I know they've never sung in Times Square
They're not singing of those smallest white violets
That grow in the wet
With their tiny purple lines on their bottom inner petals
Or about me
Or Sam
But probably about each other
About how lovely their songs are
How good they'd be together
Not about the crescent moon
Or about where I didn't know where I was going
I don't need to know their mystery
Or how the violets grow in the same place every Spring
After being under feet of snow and inches of ice
For the other half a year
Is this the other side of the dream?
The dream?
How do you know to say it differently?
Better? Vividly?
This poem is written by Jim Musics and Teri D. B. Yeo.
It was inspiring to co-write with a writer of teeming experience and life which really spill onto the page. Such an honour and delight!