I don't often do dream poems ... that is, poems about dreams ... simply because I have trouble recalling the dreams when I wake up.
This one was different, though.
I had this sense, as I say in the poem, of actually being taller than John Wayne on his horse. What a feeling that was. I wrote down what I recalled of that feeling.
Then, later ... that's right, pardner ... this one turned into a poem about writing, a subject that I find mysterious and perplexing. Even when the words come together neatly to form a poem, I'm sometimes puzzled as to how that really happened.
Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not completely baffled by the writing process, but it sometimes seems that poems, in particular, "write themselves," and I can't help expressing some amazement at that.
And now, the poem:
TALL
I dreamed that I
was tall, taller than
John Wayne, taller than
John Wayne on his horse,
and I just stood there
looking tall
and silent,
looking at all those
people looking up
at me, at last,
looking down at them,
but treating them
quietly as equals,
because that's the way
it is with me,
pilgrim,
no matter how tall
I get, nor how many
poems I’ve roped
and led home.
© 2000
(originally published in ByLine)
***
Today's word:
equalsAfterthoughts ... in response to your comments:
Thank you, Southernmush, for that comment. I just got back from a visit to your "Dear Diary" ... and enjoyed your account of the "green thumb" activities. I was having trouble getting "Squiggles and Giggles" posted today, so I missed the boat with the "green thumb" item ... but that gives me something to start with for the S&G installment of May 26 ... and I hope spring ... real spring weather ... will be arriving in Ohio by then. Good luck with those transplanted parsley and mint plants ... and that baby pine tree.
Hey, Featheredpines ... in the setting of this poem there's plenty of room for that imagination to roam ... I like the hoofprints your comment made, along the way ... and I kinda liked that "tall but equal" part when it came sidling up to me, too.
2 comments:
Hello Mr. Brimm,
I have to tell you that I like this poem. Being that I am 5'foot people sometimes call me shorty or they say that because of my height I look younger than my age. People are often surprised when I tell them that I am 32 years old but I take it as a compliment. Thanks for sharing this Mr. Brimm.
By the way you might want to mention in your next installment of Squiggles & Giggles that I recently became something of a green thumb which you have to read about in my latest entry. Its nice to be reading Squiggles & Giggles again its a part of my reading so thanks.
Do keep it coming Mr. Brimm
More of my quirky imagination... I smile to visualize a poet riding a painted horse under the stars, seeking words to rope and once carefully corralled into poems, letting them go to roam free-range...and into our lives...as he smiles and writes off into the sunset :)
I like the tall but equal part, too.
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