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I dream.
There are times that I wake with the scent of fresh bread and the wildflower honey of my grandfather's bees lingering in the bedroom the dream has only recently fled. There are times I fall asleep to remembered lullabies; there are times when in the darkness a lost and golden sun rises remembered dazzling my dreaming eyes. There is a river that cradles the place that bore me, its waters part of my blood. My river flows through dreams, old, slow, grave, deadly, with horror-storied whirlpools pointed out to me on half-legendary childhood walks along the willowed banks. It carries ghosts and shadows; sometimes they leave strange footprints in the heavy, chocolate-coloured mud smelling of death — rotting leaves, river ooze, torn insect wings, fish scales — and diesel from the quiescent, paint-peeling, gentle, ancient old-man tugs bobbing by the quays. There are places I will never find again, where some veil between worlds was rent; I remember walking in secluded mystical clearings where pale marsh lilies and a wild white rose grew amongst the river reeds, where all the dreams I call mine were born, and where the tales that crowd my mind were blown gently upon me by fairy breath, like dandelion seeds. I can see it now, the sun on the river, turning it to stately gold — an ageing emperor, its music full of lingering grandeur, hiding vast, ponderous catfish in murky depths, and minnows, and secrets and griefs trusted to its silence taken like treasure to the sea. I sleep again. There are times that I wake with the willows that trail graceful fingertips in the river of my childhood gently brushing my face like unquiet ghosts. There are times that my memories are vast, my knowledge greater by far than what could be confined in a single mind. I dream the dreams and the memories of my race — and I dip my grail into the waters of that old river and raise it brimming with wine — in homage, in love, in a dream that is memory, in memory of dream. [Ed. Note: Fourth part of a 10-part poem to be published in its entirety over the next few renditions. « Beginning | « Previous | Next »] · · · · · ·
Alma Hromic, the author with R. A. Deckert of Letters from the Fire, was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Trained as a microbiologist, she spent some years running a scientific journal, and later worked as an editor for an international educational publisher. Her own publishing record includes her autobiography, Houses in Africa, The Dolphin's Daughter and Other Stories, a bestselling book of three fables published by Longman UK in 1995, as well as numerous pieces of short fiction and non-fiction. Her last novel, the first volume of a fantasy series, Changer of Days: The Oracle, was published in September 2001 by Harper Collins. Hromic is an essential member of Swans. She maintains her own Web site (with Deck Deckert) where she provides information about her work and the professional services she offers: ButterknifeBooks.com Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this article on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting the first paragraph or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work without the expressed written authorization of Swans, which will seek permission from the author. This material is copyrighted, © Alma A. Hromic 2002. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. |
This Week's Internal Links
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Alma Hromic on Swans
Essays published in 2002 | 2001
On the Anniversary (September 2000)
Subject: Into Myth (September 2000)
Sadness in Novi Sad, Serbia (April 2000)