Reflectology (4), or Visibility Limited

[netpositive]

Please tell why, do we build castles in the sky,
Oh tell me why, all the castles way up high--
Ian Van Dahl

Is dreaming just a butterfly, or
just a sticky grey cocoon we spin and break open?

If I dream of being in Kansas City, and
not being able to find the rental car
that I need to return to the airport
so that I can get back home --

(crows and chickadees chattering in the trees
and one lone goose, laden, honking north)

if I dream of lying side by side on the grass
with my favorite collaborator at work, gazing
up at the stars but knowing now (in hindsight)
they'll never let us build that ship together --

(a thousand seagulls clustered cold on a wire T,
with heavy mists coming in from the south river)

if I dream of Wodehousian young men in spats,
dancing in line, twirling gold and silver pocketwatches --

(the younger cardinal just bounced off a branch
sending a yellowed maple leaf to the bare ground,
as the soft eastern rays start to be cut off)

if I dream of being with my back to the wall --

(I never got to sit still in the side yard
all spring or summer long. And this one time
I'm trying to, well, even here I can't sit for
an hour without being disturbed by a life
that I didn't ask for. That isn't mine.)

I know who the wide-eyed boy at the dance
with the smile and bright copper hair was.
And I also have some suspicions of that
wary would-be mentor with the biker tattoos.

But why Kansas City?


Dear Tir-na Nog'th, aka Unconscious,

Sorry there's so much on (y)our plate(s)
right now -- hazards of spatial dislocation.
Could you please tell me the color of the car
next time? You know I'm looking hard for it.

Forever yours in Amber,
Conscious

... the circumstances of your life
reveal who you are, not
what has happened to you.

Circumstances do not make you
unless you think yourself down to them.
Iyanla Vanzant