Dreams( excerpts)

There in tangled rail yards, on tracks of time

lines upon lines of them: Cars of dreams.

Dreams from south traveled north

laded from harsh docks and jangled chains,

dreams wet with woman’s tears.

Rainbows of dreams--

golden from the gentle kiss of sun;

pale shades --

Blacks like ebony night;

reds held in  dune songs.

There were dreams that came to sudden end,

dreams that roamed and meandered;

 slowly ...like bends of great rivers.

Dreams ... like faded sounds; echoed  train calls

in mountains- -

Dreams from deep souls of mother’s grief

in emptied hands of lost and taken worlds.

They were there in disarray- some,

in ordered files and closeness- others;

 ----

Full of cargoes that no longer have any use

relics now, signs of earlier times, abandoned schedules.

Dreams  ...that followed steamy night, 

still drift in wait like flower scents

for love and answer; all, all

are there in rail yards of disuse.

Upon overgrown and sunken steels

dilapidated stocks of life, and skeleton shells.

“If only” they say, if only… a wind,

a wrinkle in smooth sheets of time, if only…

and in sleep that comes to hold us

a way of time like ice awaiting thaw

in restless states of heart and memory

in place- they swim against the stream…they cannot be still

for if stilled, they cannot be; they rail upon rails

and stir within seasons, in gusts and blows;

in night storms that warm possibility.

Like great golden bolts that ease clouds…they believe

fire will overcome the gravity of night.

Inspired "Sueños de trenes," Estravagario, 1958

by Pablo Neruda

“Train Dream”

Translated by Clayton Eshleman