My friend Dave dreams he’s at my house in Haiti
and just as he’s about to knock on the door
it opens
and a Carnival procession cavalcades out,
led by a man on a donkey
and accompanied by raucous rara music.
Dave wakes up as the revelers push by him,
(I imagine the donkey,
costumed in satin and sequins),
and hours later,
in the pale northern afternoon,
Dave realizes
that today is Mardi Gras.
In New Jersey where Dave lives,
snow still covers the ground this Fat Tuesday
and the particular energies required for a Haitian Carnival
remain frozen.
Meanwhile, here in Haiti,
while it’s a breezy eighty eight degrees,
and the palm trees and tropical backdrop sparkle,
political problems have cancelled this year’s festivities.
In short, Mardi Gras twenty nineteen is rather thin.
It’s Tuesday,
but Wednesday’s coming with all the ashes.
Dave stayed in my house once for about a month,
in twenty ten, another time when Carnival didn’t happen;
that year we’d just had a huge earthquake.
I wasn’t there, since
I’d gone to the US with the children;
my husband hosted him, sort of,
and Dave slept in my daughter’s room
and read books from her shelves in the evenings
after working all day in disaster relief,
while she went to seventh grade in Kentucky.
My house in Haiti is still part of the landscape of Dave’s dreams
just as he somehow knows without knowing that it’s Carnival time
the same day he wakes from the sound of drums and bamboo trumpets
and looks out his window at March in New Jersey.
Fifteen hundred miles away,
I stand startled, watching
merrymakers parade out of my door
dressed in the red and blue of the Haitian flag,
their tall headdresses swaying
as they sashay into the neighborhood
leaving behind the donkey poop for someone to clean up.
Let’s face it, I think,
annoyed by the effects of other people’s imaginations:
that someone will probably be me.
Mardi Gras, 2019
Ruth, from thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
Today's roundup is here.
12 comments:
It's Tuesday, but Wednesday is coming with all its ashes. Brilliant lines, these! I enjoy your dream poems, Ruth, even when they're not your dreams. xo
Thank goodness he woke up before you had to do clean up duty :-)
I'm glad you wrote about his dream -- such a wonderful contrast between the warmth and snow, the celebration and the lack of it. Hugs.
Oh my, the connections even in the dreams, wandering to you, who then write of it, more connecting! Anyone, I suspect, even with snow, can hold Mardi Gras in their minds, extend it to dreams. I love that you shared this dream with us, too, Ruth. Thanks!
I'm still too entertained by the sight of a Carnival procession emerging from your front door, and humbled by my unconscious mind reminding me of the day when I hadn't paid it any thought, to feel anything but amusement over the mess the donkey must have left for you to clean up in your living room.
I eagerly await hearing what revenge your subconscious cooks up to get back at me for this intrusion.
I'm glad you wrote a poem based on his dreams. I love the line, "my house in Haiti is still part of the landscape of Dave's dreams." It works so well to name him throughout.
Thanks for sharing your poem. What a compliment that your home and his visit is still in his dreams. :)
Ruth, this is a fanTAStic poem. I love the comfy feel of the story telling and the wonderful lines I just must read again..."It's Tuesday but Wednesday is coming with all the ashes" is a knock out!
Yup. The Tuesday/Wednesday line is a favorite for me, too. But I'm also in awe of how you took his dream and made it into such a SUCH a poem!
The subconscious is such a mystery! I love that you plumbed the depths of Dave's dream to find this incredible poem. As others have mentioned, the Tuesday/Wednesday is inspired. Thank you for sharing!
Tuesday morning--my latest PF commenting ever. I'm owning it!
What IS that thing you do so well, Ruth? It's the conversational line with the subtle hooks of meaning, but I want this to have a NAME!
"and the particular energies required for a Haitian Carnival
remain frozen."
Dreams are a very rich source of surprise truths.
This poem is rich with so many levels of experience. Dave's waking and dreaming ones -- your experience of carnival in Haiti and in the States, and in different years. It's all fluid, a parade of memories.
I sometimes return to old things I've written, to enjoy them if I can as if someone else were the author and creator of them. Tonight the path brought me here to your poem. It was an oddly memorable dream, and these few years later I'm still undone that my dreamself celebrated the day, and I'm still in love with your line "It may be Tuesday, but Wednesday is coming with all its ashes."
Post a Comment