A Crow Among Crows

For Layli Long Soldier

I had not dreamt for some time, and when I did, I could not remember. I tried everything: valerian and lavender tea, melatonin, a glass of merlot before bed, baths with warm lighting—Cesária Évora softly sounding in my speaker—tapping, yoga, candles, incense, prayer. And still, I would wake up the next day unable to remember what I had dreamt if I had dreamt at all. But one night, after a long day of walking around with a foggy mind—my sons now teenagers in high school, and my heart burdened with sadness and fear hoarding all rooms in my chest—I slipped into dream.

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The sky is mustard yellow, a painted canvas—color set in place,

                   & I am flying again. I feel the stillness of the wind brush my hair back.

       I have no fears. No worries. Below me, the Ocean, moss green,

                   opaque & calm. No land is visible except for the canvas

    of my dream split into two: endless sky & Ocean. Although I cannot hear

          myself breathing, the movement in my chest is rhythm & deep.

                                                                        ^             ^   ^   ^

As far back as I can remember, I have looked forward to the dream life. Many of my dreams are set by the Ocean where I take the shape of a sea animal swimming in the soundless depths of the waters surrounded by other sea life. In other dreams, I am on a shore where someone’s peaceful energy is revealed to me through their words of wisdom or song. I tell myself to remember when I wake up, but most words and songs are forgotten. There in my dreams, I can control my surroundings, especially when I am flying. Sometimes, as soon as I am awake, I have clear insight as to how to proceed in the waking life. Other times, I am gifted with my sons visiting my dreams as the children they once were when we lived in a cottage surrounded by tall trees in San José, where they made Lego shipyards of their bedroom, or airplanes of their hands flying under the redwood tree in the backyard, chasing each other with laughter—a time I felt I was able to stand between them and the cruelty of the world. Yes, I have looked forward to dreaming, and more so when I am tired, when my mind is tired and I need respite from the waking life to reset and process from the haunting belief my body was not enough to protect them.

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         I turn around & a crow is following me. I think nothing of it.

I turn around again & now the crow is accompanied by a few others

         nearing me. I am nervous. I look back a last time

                     & the sky behind me is tarred with the bodies of thousands

         of crows close enough for me to reach out with the tip of my foot

& touch their beaks. I am consumed with fear.

             Gravity wins over my body, & I am now falling toward the Ocean.

  ^          ^   ^        ^

Two years ago, because of the challenges my now-adult son was confronting, challenges I was unable to assuage or protect him from, I began to favor my dream life over my waking life even more. I could not wait for night to overtake the sounds of the day: the rushing of cars, birds bawking in the avocado tree outside of my window perhaps fighting over an avocado, or the phone ringing and an unknown number. I wanted to escape by flying over sleepy towns or above mountain ranges filled with California poppies, but I was at a crossroads in the waking life, which affected my sleep. If someone who came through my body, whom I loved immensely, was suffering, who was I to enjoy life? I would think to myself. I began to lose purpose in writing. I was losing faith in an unknown entity, in God, Creator, to whom I went to often. It had been a while since I felt some sort of excitement or joy, and I was unsuccessful in attaining remnants of it through nostalgia or the present. Instead, I returned to the memory of my dreams for answers and solace.

                                                                                                  ^   ^   ^   ^

     I cannot stop myself from falling, nor can I control my flight above the Ocean,

for it is the Ocean who oversees my fall. I am plummeting into the moss

                green murky depths with the same velocity as before.

Submerged in the Ocean, I am drowning with anxiety & fear.

                                  ^       ^       ^                                      ^

I was meeting with my writing mentor and had been looking forward to meeting with her for the past few weeks. It was what I needed: excitement in the waking life. We were meeting over Zoom, but I was also nervous. I kept thinking to myself: I’m not supposed to be in this MFA program. The poems I had sent her were ones I had written before I started at Randolph College, ones I had revised repeatedly and polished. I had not been writing and, truthfully, I was contemplating abandoning poetry after decades of coming back to it time and time again.

^           ^                             ^                        ^

     A voice whispers in my ear as I am in the Ocean plummeting deeper.

No tengas miedo. No tengas miedo, It repeats. I begin to say to myself:

         No tengo miedo. No tengo miedo. No tengo miedo. Fear exits my body slowly

                    as I continue to repeat these words. I am filled with courage,      

    & suddenly the Ocean pushes me toward the horizon,

                            spits me back into the mustard-colored sky as though

  She had been waiting for me to believe in what She already knew.

                         ^   ^            ^                       ^

My mentor and I have gotten through our greeting, and we turn to the poems. As if intuiting past the poems, she asks, “How are you doing?” as in, Are you okay? “I can’t write and have not been able to for a while,” I express to her without mentioning my internal consideration. We converse about life. She listens and I share about my sons, dreams I have had, my fears. I listen and she shares. The hour moves quickly toward its end, and we have not talked about the poems. “You don’t have to separate your life from your writing, Yaccaira,” she says gently but firmly. She urges me to write about the dreams, this pain, this life without expectation—to write for me. And so, I begin to meld words again starting with the crow dream. And, ever since then, when I become feeble in my Spirit’s desire to express or react to life, I remind myself not to separate my writing from it.        
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   ^                 I am flying again.                   

                                                I am a crow among crows.