Articles, Essays and Poems by Susan
The Poetry of Dreams
Archives - August 2007
Even your nightmares may be a gold mine for poetry and prose.
Here’s an example from this summer.
My home in Southwest Idaho typically enjoys four seasons of live-able weather. During the summer months we luxuriate in days, which end in alpenglow long after ten. When summer comes to the Treasure Valley, nothing beats an evening of outdoor theater or music, or an exhilarating trip down the Boise River on an inner tube.
But the summer of 2007 tormented us as well. A relentless heat wave and the devil sun baked the landscape and the people. Dry lightening storms set off range and forest fires decimating hundreds of thousands of acres in Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. Landowners lost homes, cabins, and livestock. The west lost another big chuck of beauty and everyone suffered in the choking smoke.
Now as summer wanes, a dream reflects the claustrophobia I experienced when
the red alert and oppressive heat drove us indoors. The dream-maker weaves my love of Idaho with the memory of the Boise foothills buried under a blanket of smoke. From a tall building I gaze over a sea of stagnant air.
“Where is the valley? “ I ask. “How can this be?” Turning to my dream companion, I ask “Can we stop this?” She tells me “It’s never going to get any better.” I wake in an anxious sweat.
A heavy heart followed me into the next day; so as the morning dawned cool and clear, I scribbled dream words in my journal: darkness, firestorm, smothering, suffocating, caged, trapped, despair. After a time, poetic phrases began to gather in my mind . . . flames of uncertainty; billowing doubt; prisoner of darkness, raging loss of despair. I saw my dream in a broader context. The images spoke to those bigger fears and disappointments, as well as my sense of helplessness as the forces of man and nature collide.
Writers understand the value of this imagery. A poet knows that a good poem speaks to those universal feelings through symbol and metaphor. Next time you sit down to write borrow some images from your dreams. When routine lulls you away from your poetic inspiration, try capturing the nightly programming of the dream-weaver.
Firestorm
What we fear is uncertainty
Blackened lands of despair
Firestorms in the summer of life
We cry for exemption from
Agony, Grief
A fight to escape
Insignificance.
We live in Miasma
Gray haze cannot give
What we need in these times
To thrive
A beckoning campfire
A flame of compassion
A sizzling ember of hope.
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