Bishop dreams

Remembering and reclaiming chutzpah.

In my dreams

Pieces of the past

Make themselves present,

Weave new stories.

One of my first bishops

Arrives for Thanksgiving dinner.

I introduce him

To the family.

He praises the seasoning

On the filet mignon.

Awake

I tell stories

Real stories

Non-dreamed stories

To my beloved

Of this bishop

How I redefined the rules,

How he let me

Redefine the rules

So I could vote at Convention:

Me

A priest in my late twenties..

I had chutzpah then.

I guess that’s where

It came from.

Camino del conejo

Rabbit road

Dream Spanish

Is an interesting language.

I must remember enough

From high school.

Last night I followed

A bike path

Named

Camino del conejo

Around and around

A lake,

An endless loop.

I did not see any rabbits.

The loop itself

Was endless.

Donde esta el conejo?

Donde??

Maybe one more loop around

I will see

That rabbit.

Whyever did I think?

For Martin and me and you, heck, all of you.

Whyever did I think

There would come a time

When the participation in,

The organization of,

Prayer vigils

Would come to an end?

It remains

In the same category

As the final obtaining

Of some sort of licensure

From some body of people

So I could prove to them

Every two or three years

I was still worthy

To pile letters

After my name.

Whyever did I think

I would see this time,

This halcyon

Dreamed about,

Prayed about

Time;

This time when the lion

Would lie down

With the lamb;

When the licensed

Might see the unlicensed

As having something of worth

To offer?

Whyever did I think

I might pray such limits

Away;

We might walk

Nay

We might skip together

In newly mown fields

Like children,

Look up at the sun

And know,

Simply know,

All of us know

It is good.

Hotel room dream

Funny things, these dreams.

In the hotel room

I dream of the kitten.

I dream of taking tests

In which I score 61

Though normal

Is 68.

The test-giver laughs

When I tell her

That’s not good enough.

But look!

She says

Look!

That same test says

You have absolutely no risk

Of a heart attack.

I wonder how this can be.

No

She says

No

These tests can’t lie.

So

I wake up.

Free haircut redux

Sometimes, no often, the holy is found in such exchanges. This was the real thing.

This was the real thing.

No dream with lines of past clergy friends

Waiting for their free haircut.

No.

Only me

On a very real, chilly day

Taking my wallet out to pay

No.

Clergy are free,

She says.

That’s not necessary

I say.

No,

She says,

Clergy are free.

Thank you,

I say.

I tip her.

That’s not necessary,

She says.

Yes it is,

I say.

Thank you,

She says.

Don’t wait so long

To get your hair cut

Next time.

Free haircuts

In the morning space, I dreamed of getting my hair cut at the salon across the street. I've been told clergy get free haircuts there. In my dream I went in and all my clergy colleagues were waiting for their haircuts


In the morning space

I dreamed the list

Of things to do,

Even added some.

The possible haircut became

A gathering of all the clergy

I have known

Waiting for their free haircuts

Across the way.

I wondered how this business

Made any money;

All the chairs were filled

With waiting clergy

Across the way.

Then I woke up

And began the list again.

Scilla

I had to ask a friend for the name of "that flower." I never knew it before. My mother, the gardener, called it a weed. It is only blue for awhile in the spring, but now I know it has a name. Now I know I can plant it and it will spread where it wills. It will light up the shade.

Every spring I encounter

Blue carpets

On stray lawns,

Blue I have to remember again

Each spring.

I have never lived in a house

With such blue.

When I grew up

The next door neighbor

Had a shady patch which blued

Each spring.

I didn’t encounter it again

Until a few years ago now

On a walk around some block

Somewhere.

Now that blue appears

When we are late to church

And park a block and a half away.

I dreamed that blue last night,

A patch of flowers grew

In my living room.

When I looked out the back door

The blue covered the lawn,

A blue carpet

On my grass.

It was a Visitation

It was an Annunciation

It was Holy

Shirt

Sometimes particular dreams set up ripples, like stones thrown into a still pond. 

Years ago now

I dreamed I asked a friend

For the shirt off his back.

He wanted to give it to me

But

Try as he might

He couldn’t.

He pulled out shirt tail

After shirt tail

After shirt tail

Like endless magician’s scarves.

Months later

Driving home from blessing a house

I realized:

I get my own shirt!

Happy dance.

I get my own shirt?

Damn.

I get my own shirt?!?

Now what?

Years ago I learned

I get my own shirt.

Now I sit with people

Talking about shirts.

The song

Odd. What is that song? Perhaps I am not meant to remember. It was rather pleasant to have the crowd making up the words. Perhaps my next vocation is as a song leader.

The dream has me

On a small stage,

Filling in for another singer.

I strum my guitar

But don’t remember the words

To the song.

The crowd makes up words,

Sings along.

The song never comes to mind.

I wake up

To words

From

What have they done to the rain?

That was not the song

I was trying to remember

But maybe it will do.

Resonance

Ah, dreaming. I dreamed a church supper with a bishop, a random woman bishop. At my table we opened a lima bean pod, rather like edamame. Each of us got one bean, and it seemed to be enough.

Some mornings I write

So I won’t lose the dream,

Even the snippet of a dream

I had,

That one small piece.

It resonates.

Sometimes

If it happens in the middle of the night

I keep waking

And waking

And waking

Like last night.

Here in the light of day I think

I should have written it down

At 2 AM.

Maybe next time.