A DREAMING FAMILY

What sorrow I felt for this dreaming family,
They dream only of residing in a temporary heaven,
Where romance escapes with them into a free fancy of liberal living for an independent infinity,
From normalcy, this dream stays away, around hours of time and past parallels of time zones.

It rests far from father’s weeks and their 24 hundred minutes of labor,
The work of which weakens, it wearies him for the wages,
And the minutes both preceding and following these 24 hundred ones,
They are spent with a familiar vehicle, traveling and enclosed in traffic’s traps,
But such stressful minutes are filled with relief during this dreaming family’s dream.

A dream that floats a distant distance from the seas of sweat mother sheds,
Because she bathes in exhaustion with every meal made and each deed done,
For every errand she runs, she runs closer to the finish line of sanity,
And it is the insanity that follows which bears her surfacing sweat,
But such a fervid feeling is chilled in this dreaming family’s dream.

It is a dream standing expanded spaces from the graded children’s degraded land,
Whose hands tickle homework’s white on homework nights with a penned or penciled black,
Though every melanism released causes more melancholy increased,
Only it accelerates the sentence to serve at that familiar school building,
But meekness of twelve such years is killed by this dreaming family’s dream.

It will kill it by providing them with treasures and pleasures immeasurable,
In this dream, the corners of amusement and entertainment are sharpened into an acute arrangement,
In it, for instance, father stands before a broad landscape of a trimmed green ground,
To his left is a gang of ugly trees mugging at him,
Rough branches are erected from their dark bodies, and from each branch hangs a foliage in the wind,
To his lower right lies a layer of tan sand, and behind this flat shape is a napping pond, 
	snoozing to the rush of warmth by each gust of wind,
But father is gazing at the eighteen poles sprouting from eighteen holes,
As he swings that iron club and watches the white sphere fly into the distance.

Father then follows such a flight to land on a splash of a sea crowded with islands,
At each one are a few, four, or even more visitors gormandizing at opposite shores,
Father is led by a black and white ship to one of these islands where mother has awaited him,
And they partake in parleys of laughs and talks until that ship returns, sailing back incredible edibles,
Including the lettuce burial of a fired lobster exhaling silver steam,
Along with the corpses of a dozen fried shrimp that shine like golden nuggets before father’s eyes,
The muscular brown of a juicing steak is less shiny, but its rarity is revealed when father carves a 
	bleeding fissure,
Likewise, a gravy pouring’s brown is recognized when it drowns the mash of a snow potato below,
Then mother similarly drowns the emerald lettuce, scarlet tomatoes, and crouton cubes of a rainbow salad 
	with the orange lump of a thousand islands,
Lastly, they toast some hissing wine to an hour of devouring and feasting like beasts.

And in this dreaming family’s dream, the ocean stretches beyond this crowd of islands where mother and 
	father have feasted,
The ocean’s tip soaks the edge of a beach, where gurgling waves creep back and forth,
It is here where little daughter stands, the rushing bubbles surrounding her, 
Some popping on her feet and others dying away as they coward back into the ocean,
But she cowards when they return, frightened at the shallowness diminished with each farther view of 
	transparent sea,
Because only in this dream does the paradisiacal water house fantansies of species and hold up skyscraping 
	seaweed,
Little daughter can see its clear depths, drowned at the mushy ground miles and miles down,
Thus, swimming follows only hesitation, marked not by hydrophobic fear but by acrophobic dread.

While she still stands still, there is a working beach stretched behind her,
Its busy body is dented everywhere with footprints of energetic younglings,
It is also impressed with pairs of circles by those deciding to sit the sun away,
And it serves as a temporary tomb for those laziest folks who bury their entire bodies among the sand,
Young sonny, with his little limbs extended randomly, lies in this position like a flying angel,
All the sweat his sleeping body cries makes him sleepier, for he can melt away into the cindering sand,
So he welcomes each ardent ray that the sun rains on him.

Yes, as if boozed into such an imagination, this family has slept and snoozed to this dream without stopping,
And for now, this dream they are dreaming will be nothing greater than a dream,
In the meantime, young sonny, for example, will not be lying on any sanded beach,
For now, he will be walking on the same ground and under the usual clouds,
He and little daughter will return to that familiar school building where they will continue to be graded for 
	the rest of the twelve years,
And any energy faded will bring about the drizzle of a dreamer’s tears,
But such energy has to be used on homework nights to dominate with a penned or penciled black the paper of 
	homework’s white,
And to help complete this sentence of twelve years.

Likewise, father will return to his familiar vehicle to travel in traffic’s traps,
Because he, too, must serve a sentence,
And, though far past being an apprentice, his 24 hundred minutes per week of labor weakens and wearies him,
But, like any man who breathes and ages in the book of life with endless pages, father must work for his wages.

And within me, mother is making meals and doing deeds again,
And when she leaves my interior, she feels no less inferior,
Because her schedule is never barren, and on the contrary always filled with errands,
So she sheds her sea of sweat with every errand she runs, where she runs closer to the finish line of sanity,
But she knows sacrificing her sanity will erase any vanity she may have as a wife or mom in her remaining 
	lifetime.

And now, as I look up to see nothing but a black dome scattered with sparkles of stars,
And listen to hear nothing but the steadiness and stillness of my fellow neighbors sitting on the same ground 
	as we all have for years,
I can still feel a dream being dreamed,
Because inside of me is a family of dreamers in a sleep where they are always doing far more than sleeping,
In their sleep, this family cruises the ocean with 10 thousand fish,
And accompanies 10 billion grains of sand at the beach,
In their sleep, this family is touring towns, playing at parks, and seeing sights,
In their sleep, this family crawls from the deep hole of faces they see everyday to experience the people and 
	places of worlds lived in different ways,
In their sleep, this family is a family of dreamers, dreaming dreams any dreamer would be dreaming.


© 2000, © October 1996 (Original version)