dreaming

flights of fancy
strong as light
pour in easy
overnight

I'm building castles in the clouds
dreaming out loud
running ahead & laying out the furniture
this would go here, this would go there
I could do this and this and this.

It's beautiful, I love it
it's so much fun.
why is this always discouraged?
what's so wrong with this?
It's encouraging, uplifting,
it feels amazing, gives me hope.

And yeah, it'll hurt if it doesn't work out
but there are other options that could
and that would still provide the framework
for the dreams I have.
So why would I suppress this?
why always shushing?

You're not supposed to count your chickens before they hatch,
or better to be safe than sorry,
and certainly crossing that bridge when you get to it is wise.
But why is getting your hopes up so wrong?
It'll hurt if it doesn't happen, but wouldn't it hurt
even if I tried to restrain the bulging bag?
Doesn't it grow anyway?
Shouldn't we be more worried about stamping out
any signs of life? What if we give up on our hope
out of fear it might not happen?

What's the root cause of this caution?
a sincere desire to not see disappointment
on our child's face? to spare them the pain
of loss? what foolish hope.
Or does it go deeper than that
to the stunted capacity granted our
parents to handle the pain of their
children?

Generations of parents reining in the
wild ambitions and unfettered hope
of their children in hopes that they'll
be content with the box of dirt
provided them.

Passing on the lopped-off hopes
they themselves received.
Drawing circumscribed circles
of possibility in pipe dreams
of lesser pain.

How do we take the fear
so genuinely received,
and look it in the face?
Where do we find the gumption
to say I see you
and you are real,
but mostly you're the elongated
shadows of fear. And I am
more scared of not growing at all
then venturing outside my cage.

Perhaps the wild things themselves
will help us. If we sit with them
and study them, will they coach us
on how they reach for the sun
and soak up the rain and dance
in the wind everyday?

I've lived so long in the obedience
of fears wrapped up and passed on
over generations, stories and
shadows of pain past. But
pain is never avoidable and
suffering is only prolonged when
you cling to the lip of the funnel
meant to wash you thru the
feelings of loss and pain.

Shattering hurts, grant you.
And sometimes growth is not possible.
but ordinary miracles are
generally habitual in the transformation
of hard shells into dancing leaves of green
waving over branching arms of plants.

So dream, little one.
Don't fear the loss of things
you were never meant to be anyways.
Let the dreams grow long and elaborate
tall and falutin', lyrical and ambitious.
Maybe they'll happen just as you dreamed them
and maybe they won't.

But the magic of dreams isn't in their exact replication
but in the eating of the soul's bread and butter
that there is a better world possible out there
if only we can dream it up.

R. Nordman

I wrote this poem dreaming of moving to a new place, but it is just as applicable to this dream of writing a poetry blog. If you'd like to read more poems like this one, be sure to hit the sign-up button!