Where Dreams Meet Daily Life
by Freya Manfred
Sometimes I’m harsh with my family.
Beneath my harshness lie my tears.
Beneath my tears a woman filled with dreams,
who gave birth to words and children and gardens.
But now my children walk the earth
with bones that have finished growing,
and my husband read the newspaper until I speak,
then answers and calls it love.
My words seem irrevelant, like my dreams,
crowded with strangers at loud parties
where I can’t find anything to drink.
Did my dreams ripen because my rich life fed them?
Or did my hungry dreams feed my life?
The place where dreams meet daily life
must be blessed by what is unknown.
We move as a spirit flies, or as underground
water flows, the way stones still breathe
with the spirit that gave them birth.
You can find this poem in Swimming With a Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle.