Recurring Dream
I keep dreaming that I fall from the sky
faster than Icarus
but slower than the rain
The repetition rattles me
more than death brushing my shoulder in a crowded room
but less than the thud that jolts me awake when I know I’ve hit the ground
Floating above clouds
just below the stratosphere
far from my favorite tree’s reach
I call to anyone who can hear me
until my voice breaks
and my screams get lost somewhere in the troposphere
For a child to follow
as she stares out the airplane window
en route to a destination unknown
4 thoughts on "Recurring Dream"
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Again, the turn. Unexpected and ambiguous. Shifting of viewpoint from speaker to child. Taking the poem, abruptly, someplace else.
What makes the entirety…more 🤷🏼♂️
Thank you! It’s actually this strange, literal recurring dream I’ve had for nearly a decade. That’s how the dream ends every time. I have NO idea why. It’s just as much a mystery to me, friend. Once again, I appreciate that you take the time to read my poems with such care.
Re-reading, I like the way the first four stanzas set up the more than/less than, almost refrain (that first one was the visual I was struck by on first and second read). Knowing that the words are literal images from a dream does complicate it even more.
A therapist once told me one way to interpret dreams is to imagine that each person and object in the dream is You. The child rides in safety (though she is having to watch another you fall, and doesn’t know where the plane is taking her). Interestingly though, the falling You also sees her…and it is Your voice that tells us her destination is unknown. So there is that tension between security/stability and fear of the unseen/unstable. Perhaps decoding it all and finding peace could be to start to understand you are also the plane around her…how do you and your actions protect that inner child? “Faster than Icarus/but slower than the rain”. How do you feel that you flew too high?
Maybe next time there will be wind to slow your descent.
Oof. I need to unpack it all. Thank you for the helpful lens through which to see/unpack/interpret this. Always appreciate your insightful thoughts, Joseph.