Dream Winter
Just like an echo is a mirror of sound, February is a mirror of November. Lead-sky, writes Jan Zwicky in the Wittgenstein Elegies, as though God coloured the light with a pencil. And Anne Sexton: I have died once before in November.
In a dream writing workshop, I try to find a balance between immediacy and refinement. First I write the dream, then the prose poem, the dream, the poem. Like this I edit down my subconscious into a series of images and feelings. Iron belted tampons left on a shelf, the distorted appearance of legs through water, a fork in a river. Its so abstract. Someone dreams that they need a new mirror and we talk about this for an hour.
Later I dream about amputated bodies. A scalp grafted with honey comb and bones without skin. I’m apprehensive to bring these dreams to the workshop at risk of revealing how vulnerable I feel. Winter does this; kills the spirit with its dull light. I lay on my back reading about utopia, drifting off to poppy sleeps, arnica salve, hemp oil on the tongue.