I woke in the night
and thought, It was a dream,
nothing has torn the future apart,
we have not lived years
in dread, it never happened,
I dreamed it all. And then
there was this sensation of terrific pressure
lifting, as if I were rising
in one of those old diving bells,
lightening, unburdening. I didn’t know
how heavy my life had become—so much fear,
so little knowledge. It was like
being young again, but I understood
how light I was, how without encumbrance,—
and so I felt both young and awake,
which I never felt
when I was young. The curtains moved
—it was still summer, all the windows open—
and I thought, I can move that easily.
I thought my dream had lasted for years,
a decade, a dream can seem like that,
I thought, There’s so much more time ...
And then of course the truth
came floating back to me.
You know how children
love to end stories they tell
by saying, It was all a dream? Years ago,
when I taught kids to write,
I used to tell them this ending spoiled things,
explaining and dismissing
what had come before. Now I know
how wise they were, to prefer
that gesture of closure,
their stories rounded not with a sleep
but a waking. What other gift
comes close to a reprieve?
This was the dream that Wally told me:
I was in the tunnel, he said,
and there really was a light at the end,
and a great being standing in the light.
His arms were full of people, men and women,
but his proportions were all just right—I mean
he was the size of you or me.
And the people said, Come with us,
we’re going dancing. And they seemed so glad
to be going, and so glad to have me
join them, but I said,
I’m not ready yet. I didn’t know what to do,
when he finished,
except hold the relentless
weight of him, I didn’t know
what to say except, It was a dream,
nothing’s wrong now,
it was only a dream.
ENJOY MORE
The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; as well as Poetry from The Jungle. All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.
The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025.
POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT:
Copyright Credit: Mark Doty, “Atlantis” from Atlantis: Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Mark Doty.
