The
Interpretation of Dreams
Smoke,
mirrors, a rest in the forest
alfresco,
sometimes a
found object suggesting a whole mosaic:
glass
marbles, beads, pebbles found on the beach,
everything I
find interesting, not only
gold between
layers.
New love
songs, a new way of seeing—
if nothing
else, I have become more brave.
When I look
at you, I feel I am looking
into a
physical memory.
…
The words of
the inscription so filled with ice,
the letters
are hard to decipher, this desolate spot, 54
degrees 54
minutes north latitude, 25 degrees 19
minutes east
longitude.
French
geographers and Lithuanian patriots are convinced,
the
geographical centre of Europe is located
precisely on
this unassuming hill.
A stone marks
the spot,
only 15 miles
from glittering Vilnius.
I think this
is the centre, she says.
After all,
they didn’t just think it up.
One day,
we’ll understand what this is worth.
Here, we
created a real process.
...
A January’s
night.
All the
windows are covered by different landscapes. The cold
draws them on
the glass.
I light up a
candle and open the door.
It smells of
old times,
books,
albums, toys, clothes.
I find a
photo.
There are two
people sitting side by side here.
They are
smiling, happy.
The photo is
really old, but very nice.
It’s in
Lithuania. The weather’s good.
I open
imperceptibly the other side of the photo,
and I see.
I live quite
far from your place,
but surely
distance doesn’t matter.
A few times I
was nearly abducted in my dreams.
What I meant
was that, in my dreams, sometimes women
approach me,
asking how do
they plant the poppies.
This way,
this way, that and that way,
that is how
they plant the poppies.
Yes, I would
like to learn more about future dreams,
each guest
bringing a symbolic gift.
Rabbit, let’s
run. The sky is falling.
…
We made our way
down a street
overhung with chocolate gables.
My guide
presses an unmarked buzzer,
and we go
through a darkened hall.
There are
people he says he knows,
but no one
speaks to him.
They are more
interested
in the vodka
and herring on the table.
I try the
local dialect, they all look up for a moment,
then return
to the herring.
It’s then I
tell them who I am.
The most
beautiful woman I have ever seen
walks over,
says to me in such a way I know it to be true,
everything
you need is here.
A fish the
size of a mountain swims through the room,
bumping
gently between us, sliding past.
Does this
gaudy morphology mean anything to you?
Glimpses turn
into shadows.
The fish
moves in unison with other things. Yesterday it was
a tiny
metallic fish she wore. All the elders
remember it
that way,
turning in
the river current, nothing moving,
the vodka
burning in my glass, blue, blue.
…
Another
incident.
I felt like
something was coming straight
to me. At
first I thought it lightning, but I thought
how does this
happen with no cloud in the sky,
and much the
same outside as the day before?
When the
practitioner did her analysis, the results
were so
astonishing, she repeated
the
measurements over and over again.
Fireplaces
were blazing, or appeared to,
adding to the
shadows thrown across
wooden
floors, the stone walls, the way your eyes’ greeny gold
held the
world.
…
After months
waiting, the envelope.
You open it
carefully along the fold, not spoiling the return
address.
You read the
letter,
the winter
night leaning against the window.
But you are
already standing in sunlight, the high thin cloud
a Cyrillic
notation on deeper blue, soft
tipped wheat
waves brushing against you as you walk
towards her,
through the door
she promised
would be there.
…
In that
place, two rivers converging, and there
your life, a
promise
farther
apart, with no hope of broad valleys.
Farewell to
the lovely lakes, a meeting place, a town
at the coming
together of the two rivers,
embracing the
enclosed spaces,
woods,
meadows, rocks,
refusing to
lift your memory into the stars.
How water is
healed describes the long wave,
earth’s
gravity grid, the 12 faced zodiac
the result of
braiding, pushing, massaging the symmetry,
allowing
information to move
between
worlds,
latitude,
longitude, the confluence neither entirely in the mind
nor in the
place,
contained in
the memory of people.
Your
passport, a passport photograph:
you in the
red dress, water becoming ordered and full of life,
braided like
this, in the snow melt
our revealing
angel.
…
From the
south,
a waiting
anchorage, clock pulses, no conversation now,
only the
minutes waiting.
We haven’t
that long to live,
waiting for
palms
surrounded by
endless coral reefs, a hammock,
the distance
long and difficult,
the stillness
between notes and pathways all changed.
I knew a
story had begun, perhaps long ago.
I stare at
the photograph, and imagine you
returning to
this new life.
You are
sleeping, or nearly sleeping. You say
each drowsy
breath will only complicate you— trust in me
and fall as
well.
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