Phillis Wheatley, Awakened Mother of the Free Word

Phillis Wheatley by Unknown

Say what is sleep? and dreams how passing strange!

When action ceases, and ideas range
Licentious and unbounded o'er the plains,
Where Fancy's queen in giddy triumph reigns.

Hear in soft strains the dreaming lover sigh
To a kind fair, or rave in jealousy;
On pleasure now, and now on vengeance bent,
The lab'ring passions struggle for a vent.

What pow'r, O man! thy reason then restores,
So long suspended in nocturnal hours?

What secret hand returns the mental train,
And gives improv'd thine active pow'rs again?

From thee, O man, what gratitude should rise!

And, when from balmy sleep thou op'st thine eyes,
Let thy first thoughts be praises to the skies.

Excerpt from "Thoughts on the WORKS of PROVIDENCE." by Phillis Wheatley (Source)

Phillis Wheatley: "the first African-American poet, and the first African-American woman to publish her writing." (Wikipedia). Watch a great reading of one of my favourites, "Hymn to the Evening."

________

The grasses spell warm delightful, cracked insect green coloration, the chalky incompleteness in the waving eye of nature stares back with full recognition, restitution with human presence. Eagerly, I walk through the high rushes, stung with the tail end of a long forgetful period of mourning. The air fills my nostrils with intense humidity. An overwhelming lushness gravitates towards my brain. All the follicles from the plant world betray my unaware scents with awakening need. Aromatic, I speed through the vibrant, near-neon lime-green touches and find my way to a log cabin under the gorgeous density of a well-pollinated atmosphere, bred for the mind’s eye to pierce through to planetary secrets untold. 

Penniless, I am a drifter of smiles, a careless frame, basking in the gathering of those my age. Who do I see? I am at a loss. 

My mother! Young in her prime, she takes pity on my beleaguered state, handing me a Canadian ten-dollar bill in front of a lunch stand. The light mountain air feeds our intoxicated bliss with an embracing strength unknown in normal life, there is a silent energy about, allowing us to traverse the freedoms abreast in this long-sought after hollow of meadow and cloudless rays. I brim over with gladness, alive at once, with my friend and mother. Holding her in the sunshine womb of celestial pride, we walk through the silky meadow, renewed. Attaining the final vision, before the gully drops off the edge of a nearby cliff, I turn around and follow the nightly smoke of fellow friends, preparing for parties in the aftermath of youth, meanwhile, my mother stays behind, patiently awaiting my return, at the precipice of subterranean mystery.

_______

Mother

"The general image of 'mother' in a dream may symbolize a variety of feelings and ideas: caring, nurturing, love, acceptance, hard work, sacrifice, martyrdom, etc. The mother in your dream could also represent the 'collective unconscious,' the source of the 'water of life,' and the yin. Carl Jung suggests that women in dreams represent the collective unconscious and men the collective consciousness. Thus, the woman is that force, or current, inside of you that nudges you on and inspires you. It is your intuition and knowledge that is not necessarily attached to words."(iDream)

_______

in the deep silent tragic night,
blizzard disarray and the electric blankness
recedes throughout our psychic presence

with ethereal dismay,
morbid as the desert solitaire,
of rose-laden heights

excerpt from "interpretive direction"