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by Fred Chappell
The voices now grow quieter inside
As the clock counts midnight. Elizabeth
Is sleeping fitfully within the wide
Dark porch past which the constellations glide
As slow as autumn's coming and as smooth.
Her vexed dreams undulate under the stream
Of murmurs that she hears, and doesn't hear,
Purling from the grown-ups. There is one dream
That leaps and dances like a candleflame
And tells her clearly that she must beware.
Beware of what? —It's part of the deceit
Of dreams that they can make us shake with dread
And startle awake drenched in icy sweat,
Shaken from our topknots to our feet,
And sit up wide-eyed in the clammy bed,
While keeping all their secrets cloaked in code:
Images to which we can't connect
Anything we may have done or should
Never have done, an angry seething flood
Of fantasies skull-faced, white-eyed, blood-flecked.
There's more to dreams than we will wish to know.
Elizabeth is dreaming gibberish—and yet
She feels that what she dreams is truly so:
She's there inside her dream; its vivid flow
Means much, though she can't say exactly what.
Perhaps she's changing into on of them,
A frowzy grown-up full of sound advice,
Dull saws to mumble in a steady hum.
Thoughtless as bumblebees, they drone and fume,
Forever faithful to their dull clichés.
And then her dream gives in to a mockingbird
Somewhere in the dark as it displays
Its genius repertoire. Each note is heard
Within her dream, each changes to a word
That coolly comforts her with what it says:
"Sleep on, little one, lullay lullaby.
For, swifter than you can calculate, the sun
Tumbles its yellow beachball up the sky
And down again, marking a day gone by
That kissed your life but will not come again.
"Fear not: the rising of the heedful moon
Signals that nighttime is not the end
Of light, of time. An elegant lagoon
Of space buoys your world up like a balloon.
Fear not, Elizabeth. I am your friend."
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