Center of the Dream

 

 

 

I have been walking

out to the edge of  my own name

to the place

where there are no names

 

and a voice says

listen

to the center of the dream

​

I have breathed

the mystery of waves

fallen into the light of stars

lived inside the songs

of unhurried stones 

​

I have been walking

​

I have glimpsed the weight

of the soul

on the wings of a butterfly

hunted with foxes and coyotes

travelled

the ancient silence

inside the eye of the snake 

​

I have been walking

 

 

I have feasted

under the wide arc

of a lonely sky

with the smallest

of the sunset colored

sand crickets

who taught me how to love

with my eyes

and see with my heart 

 

I have been walking 

​

I have made love

in the desert night

with the Aztec lizard god

who said come out from under

your human eyelid

surrender to the thunder

let the rain

enter your skin

​

I have been walking

​

I have fallen

under the broom

of the old woman in black

awakened

inside the eagle

laughed

with wise old infants

who taught me

how to play

​

with nothing in my hands

​

I have been walking

​

I have learned

from the earth

how to be still

in my spinning

​

from the wind

how to speak

my own language

​

from the sea

how to drown

and return

​

from the fire

how to dance

into the long night

​

And the voice says:

breathe

you are

the center of the dream

​

​

​

----Lisa Gale Garrigues

​

originally published in Southwestern American Literature

​

 

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