{"id":3309,"date":"2012-04-02T15:56:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T19:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2012-04-02T15:56:13","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T19:56:13","slug":"nightmares-poetry-beginners-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/04\/nightmares-poetry-beginners-heart.html","title":{"rendered":"nightmares, poetry, & beginner’s heart ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’m trying to see learning these days. Which means I’m looking for it in unlikely places. Like nightmares.<\/p>\n

I’ve always been prone to nightmares. Today’s poem for National Poetry Writing Month is about that, a particular ongoing nightmare that reappears in my life sporadically. I have what are called ‘night terrors<\/a>,’ although less frequently than when I was a child. I was an adult before I learned the name for them, or that others suffered them as well. It was a huge relief: I wasn’t crazy! Well, perhaps I am :). But not because of night terrors…<\/p>\n

When they return, which they do now & then, I’m once again a child. And once again anything — particularly anything bad — is possible. Only now? I realise that ‘anything bad’ has a flip side: anything I can imagine. And that means I can shape dreams, if not night terrors. And believe me: my imagination is pretty active\u00a0 ~<\/p>\n

Here’s poem #2 for National Poetry Writing Month:<\/p>\n

tell me anything you believe that isn\u2019t a lie ~<\/em><\/p>\n

I dreamed that I was all alone<\/p>\n

still a young child<\/p>\n

no one could hear me<\/p>\n

no one would listen<\/p>\n

it would come that no one<\/p>\n

saw me \u2013 I was not really there<\/p>\n

I wandered\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 like a ghost<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I would try to fly<\/p>\n

leave behind me\u00a0\u00a0 beneath me<\/p>\n

the terror catching at my feet<\/p>\n

the clutch of hands<\/p>\n

the hungry hungry hands<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

but my wings would not carry<\/p>\n

the weight of me<\/p>\n

I was straining\u00a0\u00a0 struggling<\/p>\n

fighting to fly<\/p>\n

trying to climb a thermal<\/p>\n

like a bird of prey<\/p>\n

and all the time prey<\/p>\n

silent<\/p>\n

falling out of the sky<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m trying to see learning these days. Which means I’m looking for it in unlikely places. Like nightmares. I’ve always been prone to nightmares. Today’s poem for National Poetry Writing Month is about that, a particular ongoing nightmare that reappears in my life sporadically. I have what are called ‘night terrors,’ although less frequently than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270,319,22],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,318,1263,320,1190],"class_list":["post-3309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gratitude","category-learning","category-poetry","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-national-poetry-month","tag-national-poetry-writing-month","tag-night-terrors","tag-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\nnightmares, poetry, & beginner's heart ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm trying to see learning these days. Which means I'm looking for it in unlikely places. Like nightmares. I've always been prone to nightmares. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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