Melody in the already music box we are….(my heart, a star, hears an endless sky song! This poem is also talking about the already/not yet of The Kingdom, which began it’s melody on The Cross! NT Wright’s and many other’s, messages rings true here; but more loudly, the melody which Jesus was, is so loud in my ears each day, it’s nearly all I hear! Every other song is brought forth by that one, which is already singing….)

After reading poetry all day in the old library with my love, had to write one myself. Excuse the length, i’m not a brief poem, though sometimes i wish i were a haiku!

Excuse the old cadences (syllabic, mostly, with my own free verse, of course!), I’ve got irish blood and my mother studied british literature alas, but how can we keep from singing, once we hear the melody playing in our dreams already! Good art, forces good living, as they say! And since someone asked me for the whole unfinished poem…..this one about how to carry what we learn or hear in dreams into our daily life of cleaning toilets (which i did throughout college, as well as clowning of course!)

(As that poet i once met said, “it will take us a long time to hear the full melody playing”, but already, i said back, the angels are singing! That’s what we spoke of when we really met, after hours…)

Already, my dreams are filled with choruses, which contradict the day!
I sleep in songs i can’t explain away when waking.
Everything-each color, person, cityscape, conversation, table,
woman’s wrist in sunlight turning, already whole in play,
So this morning, i can’t believe the gas station’s broken
handle today, the clerk’s cynical tone, the cracked pipe, the ice cream melting on my lap, the gunshot, or broken glass (i wasn’t sure which),
the spilt coffee, the truck wreck outside, the oil slick-the deep tone of
the ocean’s water crying, or even my own complaints-all,
seem so petty in comparison to what i dreamed last night!
I mean, just last night, i dreamed of each person being
so fully themselves it made me cry just to approach us! It healed even the sky, and trees and butterflies were redundant in glory.
I saw a horse leaning in ease, munching grasses beside the highways.
I saw a woman in a corner, knitting quietly in joy, having never been photographed.
i saw a kid, playing with a new toy just for Joy.
I saw creatures which refuse to be surreal, because they were so real.
I also saw myself just watching it all in awe. And
the whole thing was a melody already playing…and
with this already melody in my heart, in torn notation by
when i woke up, the rest of the day was just fine-in time with itself.
We were all like music boxes just waiting to be cracked opened
by some unseen careful hand!
In my dream, i was almost so much myself
that a burst out of my skin again;
when i woke up, i realized it was my
music box, and just wanted to dance all day, to twirl
and play!
For my dreams are filled with choruses
which contradict the day.