Chapter 3 Dreams

I am a little late, that is true. Please, forgive me. That's what friends are for, right?

Anonymous

No one else will do

I alone must enter

Generational fears linger

Heightening my personal ones

They battle for control of my state

Melting the borders between

Awe inspiring sadness and

Remembering the truth in darkness

Every night

by Sara Perez

At night,

the stars no longer sparkled.

They seemed to have abandoned their watch

as what was left on earth

died.

Her throat was filled with ashes

that carried remnants of memories

that would soon be forgotten

in the silence.

She was still barefoot,

but the soles of her feet

could not communicate with Mother Nature anymore.

No one was watching over them

as they struggled to breathe

an air that the lungs no longer wanted.

How should She move on,

when the chaos felt

unwelcoming

and home was no longer waiting.

She looked up.

Nothing but dark clouds

greeted her.

by Lyn Patterson

DANDELION CLOCKS

May my wishes of gratitude

take short flight 

from my breath 

to the grounds of Parsons.

May they plant pieces of me

in this beautiful place. 

For when I become an ancestor,

I pray some child 

finds solace in my shade.

@MOTHERNATURE

An interviewer asks me 

to name a creator who 

inspires my work  

I think of myself 

hair fully submerged 

at eye line with rapids 

at the Yuba river 

and I respond “earth”,

in all her wondrous sights,

soothing sounds, and 

vibrant colors.

BONAFIDE LOVE, BABY

In my dreams, I see us 

swaying like palm tree leaves 

to our wedding song 

& when we renew our vows,

I want Wayne Wonder &

Buju Banton blasting 

through the beach speakers

on somewhere tropical, 

  I love you in every way, 

I love you every way, 

I don’t know why.

(Ohhhhhhh whyyyyyy)

Bonafide love, baby.

by Ericka Rivera Figueroa

Como sonámbulo de Lorca, los sueños me reclaman,

“verde que te quiero verde”.

Green through a veil of trees

A mist that separates us like a vast sea.

Your green is Fitzgerald’s light across the shore beckoning me.

But stranding me as I get close, like Gatsby.

Green is the color of far away.

Hopes and dreams,

Vines itching to scale walls and grow

like blooms in Spring.

Yours is a green I’d like to wear.

Air in my lungs I’d like to breathe.

Green on my lips I’d like to kiss,

A whisper I name betwixt bedsheets.

Green was a color I never liked.

Green of confusion, of envy and spite.

Yet, yours is a green I’d like to know,

to hold and bring comfort in sleepless nights.

Green is the depth of soft words and long silences.

It is the sound of the breeze and leaves in the wind.

Your green is mirth in drunken nights

Longing in the distance,

Particular in its quirks

And guarded in its glances.

To Lorca, green was a sweet death,

an aimless sleepwalker at Dawn.

To Fitzgerald, green was hope snuffed like a candle

at the end of a journey.

There is so much in green that eludes me.

Is it stable and ever growing, like roots buried beneath the ground?

Fickle and immature, like lost boys in Peter Pan?

“Verde que te quiero verde,”

A taunting green, hidden,

Unsure whether it is a shade of emerald cities

or ripe quenepas in the summer.

I suppose the truth is we’ll never know what green is,

For you look away and shut your eyes when mine try to meet them.

by Andrea Beatriz Arango

Bx no longer sleeps.

Sleep = Vulnerability.

Sleep = Bloodshed.

Sleep is a luxury reserved only for predators,

not prey.

And bx? Bx is now prey.

Bx has seen the signs hammered on trees,

seen those thick cardboard renditions

of bx’s face,

as if bx were nothing more than fur and gnashing teeth,

a desperate traitor leading a dangerous cult,

their bodies commiting treason

every time they allow them to breathe.

The others trust bx.

They follow bx deep into virgin forest.

They sleep together - wxs and bxs and fxs -

all huddled in untouched caves.

Sometimes,

late at night,

bx hears the roar of weapons,

the echoes of a civil war

happening too far away to touch them.

And yet, they found bx once.

And the sound of dampeners being crushed

haunts bx more than the blood

long since wiped from bx’s claws.

It has been many moons.

The temperature is changing.

But still, bx does not sleep.

by Anonymous

I hate dreaming with you

I go to sleep

because in my dreams were are still

{sleep}

friends.

and imagine that you're there with me.