Oh dreams, how painful you are!
if strangled under winter’s deadly spell
lips cold, still, blue
you break with lost longings.
Extended hands grasping from a dark hole,
shards at my feet.
Your lovely shape is barely visible
frozen, lifeless as concrete,
lost among other dead things.
But
when Spring’s warm breath
blows over you
stirring stirring,
the old pain is replaced
with a new one.
The ache of pulsing, throbbing LIFE.
The pain of distension
of a dream too large
for a heart to hold.
Yellow petals too bright and heavy
for green leaves to swaddle.
Seven pounds of wriggling flesh
too vast for the womb to keep.
Orange and black wings
cramped in an immense cocoon
that now is
Suffocation.
As a child
dreams are feathers,
dandelion puffballs
blown away by magical
summer winds.
Wild ponies, untamable,
phantoms to chase with glee and
although they may never be caught,
the chase makes up the euphoria
and magic of a dream.
Dreams are as free and powerful
and unencumbered as
June, July, and August,
digging for gems in the woods,
building a shack by the creek.
As an adult,
I don’t put away childish beliefs
but continue to expect dreams to exist
in a fairy tale world where the magician’s wand
is in my own hand.
And then I wonder at this heaviness,
this thing that feels
so much like grief
and never goes away
but gets heavier
with each birthday.
(And
I fail to see the spring
in my own winter.)
I think it has something to do with a marriage.
A marriage of my airy dreams
with the cross-bearing Savior’s passion.
Dreams could now be called such,
not the passion that is strong and barely controllable emotion.
No, no! but rather
the passion that is suffering
the burden of a broken world in need of cradling
soothing
comfort.
Dreams are now heavy bundles
wrapped in blood-stained cloth
dripping onto my shoulders
pressing on my chest
kicking in my womb
clanging in my mind
breaking my fingers as I break bread
weights tied to my ankles
ever guiding my feet.
I lift my eyes and it is all I see.
The longer I’m yoked
with the Suffering One
the heavier the passion becomes.
I know this well, too:
I can always retrieve the dreams for my own again,
dump off the excess weight,
wash away the blood,
make them feather-light again.
But this is not about dreams at all
but rather about The Person who carries all burdens
my burdens
and in exchange
breaks off little chunks of his big heart,
places them on me like so many pounds of gold
and gives me the humble honor of
partnership
in his mercy-showing.
Dreams or burdens,
they aren’t mine at all
haven’t originated with me,
will not be fulfilled by me.
They’ve been gifted
to me at the marriage ceremony
under the shadow of the cross,
when I exchanged my burden of sin and sorrow
for the world’s burden of sin and sorrow.
I am set free from passion!
I am bound to passion!
Dreams, as Passion,
are really love,
a thorny seed planted
piercing the soul,
bloody.
And as Love grows and puts on weight
its beautiful head droops,
nodding in the direction of the son,
falling prostrate
under the weight of its glory.
I live each day to kill death;
Julia Esquivel
I die each day to beget life,
and in this dying unto death,
I die a thousand times and
am reborn another thousand
through that love.