* I come walking across a winter heath with a rainbow arching through gray skies above me. Sharply there comes a splintering crack, like ice breaking on a spring river, and I look up to see half the rainbow hanging down from the other half like a twisted limb. Once imprisoned colors begin to spill down, blues that change the sky’s hue to summer, greens that make me think of bare feet in deep grass, then yellows and oranges that sundown the world. Last come the reds, pouring out like angry blood.
When the rainbow is empty it hangs like a crystal holograph in the sky, until it cracks again and tumbles madly in pieces to the ground. I go on across the heath, through colors that clump and cling like mud to my boots, until I find where the rainbow has fallen. It lies in chunks, like twisted boxcars from a wrecked train.
I enter the first such “car,” and then the next and the next, to find piled within all the garbage that the human race has thrown away over the years: one tennis shoe without laces, a broken tin top, sandwich wrappers, a rusted out stove, a chair with the cane back smashed in, nylons with the toes stripped, clothes stained with tobacco and oil. Further along through the fallen rainbow are older discards: gnawed bones, a misshapen flint, a shattered spear.
When I come to the last section of the rainbow, I cannot enter. I can see dimly through to the other end, and outside stands my house, the goal I have been tramping across the heather to reach. But shadows roil in the space before me, between where I stand and where I want to be. The breeze dies when it enters that place. But something moves. Something lives. I see need the color of black. I hear rage like a pressure against my ears. Something waits, but cannot control itself enough to wait silently. That is its downfall.
I turn and trudge back the long way through the trash.
* This is an actual dream I had quite a few years ago. I’ve tried before to capture it in prose, have tried in poetry. Nothing quite works, but it was certainly an interesting dream.
Asgard lost. O Bifrost!
ReplyDeleteI think you've done very well.
Sounds like a very cool dream, a lot like life. Some beauty, a lot of garbage, some emotional response. Very lovely!
ReplyDeleteSome of us have brilliant, vivid dreams like this one. I get stuck with (or at least remember) mostly anxiety dreams, including the classic "naked in front of the class" one. You have done well in describing it, though I suspect you're unsatisfied because it's hard or impossible to relate all the changing emotions, sensations, and points of view in a dream like this
ReplyDeleteBernita, hadn't thought of bifrost in relation to the dream. Cool.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, it was one of my most enjoyable dreams.
Steve, I've had some anxiety dreams too, but the ones that really stand out are the weirdly visual ones. yes, difficult to relate all the different pieces. Words are inadequate.
Gorgeous imagery, Charles. Whether or not you feel this particular attempt at capturing your dream was successful, you certainly drew me in.
ReplyDeleteThis is the perfect example of setting describing character (a topic of discussion in my writing group recently). You've taken something like a rainbow, which is typically used in descriptions of peaceful, pastoral settings and effectively used it to describe setting and a character that are quite the opposite of peaceful and pastoral. I love how you fractured the rainbow, associated sound and gave the colors vivid, unique associations with feelings and mood.
ReplyDeleteA very interesting dream!
ReplyDeleteA shattered beauty and a safe place that can not be reached...(?)
And a beast that lurks somewhere...
Are you planning to use it in one of your writing? Oh, I think you do.
What a wonderful dream. I love the rainbow breaking into shards.
ReplyDeleteCertainly is interesting - I particularly like the "yellows and oranges that *sundown* the world". My dreams haven't been vivid of late, and I wish such would return...
ReplyDeleteAvery, thanks. It's hard to capture a dream in words.
ReplyDeleteLisa, I appreciate the feedback. And thanks for the compliment.
Szelsofa, I will definetley use it. Some elements of it have appeared in previous stuff I've done.
Shauna, thanks. I think you've heard me mention some of my other dreams at SOLA. I've certainly been blessed by having some cool nighttime experiences.
THat is beautiful! I think you captured your dream vividly and your imagery is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI'd say this is a pretty good try.
ReplyDeleteThe only dreams I ever remember are certain very vivid nightmares. And I'm not quite ready to write about those.
I think you did a pretty good job of writing down that dream. And what an interesting dream. Have you ever tried to figure out what it means?
ReplyDeleteWow, wild and cool at the same time. Gravity's Rainbow, earth station zebra, zentropa.
ReplyDeleteThis is incredibly vivid. You captured so many details and so much sensory information.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever write how you felt in each scene/car? How did you feel when you turned back? Was it relief or frustration? Have you had this dream again?
I do believe dreams have significance.