I had a dream

Dream a little dream....

I wake. I am standing on my roof, my tee shirt and shorts soaked amid the teeming rain. I can hear myself shouting, though the words are drowned by the storm. In my head I hear Lennon chewing out: All you need is love.... but the wind blows it spinning away.....

I wake again. This time I am in my bed, the storm thrashing against my duvet, the carpet rocks foaming with sea surge. It is the start of a new term and the kids are herding into the ruined chapel, high on the cliffs above Tintagel, above the Giant's Causeway, above the cliffs at St Ives.....

Vaughan Williams, A Sea Symphony is ringing in my ears, while the wind howls like a hammer on the anvil of the altar.....  The pupils mill like flour, like chaff....  I have my prepared address, pages of A4, selected poems to suit the occasion, one from the past (Shelley perhaps, or Spenser?) the other more contemporary (Heaney, or Hughes, perhaps?) interspersed with tentatively typed text that I must have composed carefully in hope that my wisdom might fall on receptive ears.....

The Head (or is it the Chaplain?) precedes me, as Vaughan Williams/Walt Whitman fades....

a rude brief recitative

Of ships sailing the seas..... 

—of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach

Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing

I cannot hear the voice, the students cannot hear, the waves, the wind, the storm is fast.....

I am supposed to climb up to the ruined, windowless, Gothic arch, to stand above the seething sea, to hurl my speech toward the shivering children, but I realise it is purposeless, the gale is overpowering.....

I turn to climb the wall of trees, the wooden wall of the nave, to clamber onto the roof where the pupils perch, like jackdaws, ruffled by the wind.....

A vast similitude interlocks all, ...

All distances of place however wide

All distances of time,

The wind is too wild, it tugs at my papers, rips them from my hand and they swirl down to dissolve in the frothing brine.  But my turn has come, their eyes turn to me, bedraggled, gaunt, leafless against the light:

This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd

And shall forevеr span them and compactly hold and enclose them

I scramble for something to say, and I yell, atop my voice, the words I left behind me over thirty years ago on leaving Rome, the words I stole from Dylan, the mighty cliches I had so often sung.....

May God bless and keep you always

May your wishes all come true

Ah who shall soothe these feverish children?

Who Justify these restless explorations?

Who speak the secret of impassive earth? ...

I held my grandfather by the arm, gently lifting at his elbow, guiding the 86-year-old up some shallow steps, some sixty years ago now, guiding him calmly up some minor steps to our door. And he turned his head toward me, saying, Don't get old, boy.  Don't get old.....

The school is standing, the wind is dying, the sea moves from passion to passivity, and only the rocks remain.....

And we say together:

May your hands always be busy

May your feet always be swift

May you have a strong foundation

When the winds of changes shift

May your heart always be joyful

May your song always be sung

May you stay forever young

Bob Dylan

Forever Young

And the sun breaks through as we move on out into the glade, the path leading us forward:

The sea is calm, the tide has receded, the broken jetty is still above the silt, the sun is going down merging coolly into the clouds:

I wake again. I am reclining, white light flooding over me, a hand grips my lower jaw, a hand wrapped in rubber.....  a strong man wrenches at my wisdom tooth, rocking from side to side, cracking the enamel, tugging, pushing, pulling..... 

Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying

Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves

Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant

And then I am free, disconnected from the pain, disjointed, released from the struggle.  The storm has abated, and the woods are hushed, save for the lyrical repetition of a Song Thrush high above me.....

And the song thrush sings, repeatedly, All you need is love.....

All you need is love....

And I wake, again. This time I am silently, soundlessly screaming.....

So long ago

Was it in a dream?

Was it just a dream?

I know, yes I know

It seemed so very real

Seemed so real to me

John Lennon

#9 Dream