The Dreams

The Dreams
by Peter Mulvey

Inside the tunnels, the stone tunnels, are the trains.
And inside the trains, the steel trains, are the bags of skin.
And inside the thin skin are blood and the bones and inside the blood and the bones are the dreams.
It really is that simple. It really is that fragile.

I am one such dream inside the blood and the bags and the bones and the trains and the tunnels and there's a dream sitting next to me and there's a dream across from me. Fragile.

Now we all know that some day the tunnels will crumble and the trains will stop. And the blood and the bags and the bones will be gone.
And in between now and then we know something must happen to every dream.
I don't know what will happen to the other dreams

But I know what will happen to me....
Sure as the rain I know. Sure as the winter.

I'll breathe and grieve and struggle and strive and
love

And if I am lucky
once just once
The dream will drop to the floor like a vase
and shatter in shards of silence
but I will see, I will see
and in the pattern of the pieces
I will see.....

something.

This will
this will
this will happen.
But now, the train with all it's precious cargo
rolls on.

Wild Geese

Wild Geese 

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things. http://www.onbeing.org/blog/mary-oliver-reads-wild-geese/5966

To a Mouse

 To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough
by Robert Burns

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An' fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't.

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!


I suggest listening to the poem to really get it. I like THIS video, and you can read the text on the same page. 

THIS website includes hyper links to a scots glossary that will help make sense of some of the odder parts of the poem (for us English speakers, anyway)