The Day of Dreams

January 15, 2018

I awoke in the morning on Dr. King’s Day
with his voice, his Dreams
pulsing in my ears on this side of the Atlantic, 
where the currents run far from what he imagined
for America, we sang as children with our palms
over our hearts, of freedom, equality, all together
because that which you sing becomes forever
the bedrock in the heart of collective Dreams
by nightfall, 
Dolores O’Riordan was dead in London, 
her Dreams slipped into posterity, along with the rest of her
songs that swelled in the sudden tides that tripped up and choked everyone who knew her
voice, on a day the barbed wind struck through slits in scarves on Times Square, 
as relentless as the pursuit of forgotten youth, to strike all unprotected
skin, didn’t I know each time I sang Dreams, I chanted freedom,  
quenched within the fathoms of Dr. King’s vision, 
the promise remains their voices
merged in our collective
Dreams forever.

Moon Tanka

The moon presses pale
pages through the bedroom blinds
at the workday’s end

my neck bent with each mistake
is a twig burdened with snow