clcouch123

Fantasia

1

I dreamed a dream last night

In which my jacket or some such

Kept getting caught in thorns

I’d get free and then right away, it seemed,

Get caught up again

I don’t know how many times this happened

I was helped at least once by someone

Else, and someone said

To be kind

That thorns are like that

Then the dream went

Where dreams go

2

I was looking through the porch screens

This morning to whatever was outside

Everything was still—I don’t think

It ever was so still

And then under a tree, while still on

The tree, I saw some branches moving

Everything above was quiet

But some branches below, as if to be mischievous

Were circling ‘round

I saw one branch was twirling

Maybe there were squirrels on the branches

Though I didn’t see them

The dancing carried on for a while

And didn’t actually stop

It was that the entire tree, many stories

High, was moving, too

I guess the wind picked up

And maybe on those branches there were squirrels

Chipmunks, grinnies maybe

(as I’ve heard someone call them)

I’m not sure an explanation lessens

Magic

And really all I was saw were leaves dancing as

If to a flute

With one branch twirling

3

I was driving into town and saw

A billboard I’d not seen before

Announcing something medical, maybe

An urgency for testing

I could see the word BLOOD in all-caps

And also see that that it had been torn off

At the bottom, many times

As if something were clawing

Or something offering a review

And rejection of the word

As if in protest

As if in need

Blood for blood

I’ve heard of it

I’m not stupid

I don’t know what it means

C L Couch

Akazienstachel (eventuell Robinia pseudoacacia?), Standort Nähe Waldfriedhof in Leverkusen-Schlebusch, Landschaftsschutzgebiet „Unteres Dhünntal“.

TipFox – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49029195

grinny – Urban Dictionary

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grinny

The Pennsylvania, Ohio, or West Virginia term for a chipmunk.