Five Sonnets on Dreaming Holly M. Wendt, Ph.D. 1.
~After Rupert Brooke
Come autumn, we put the gardens to bed, Turning gently under spent stems, bare stalks, Whatever’s left—the leaves already shed Into bright jewels crackling beneath our walks Together past the old parts of the year. Everywhere, though, the promise of the new: Seed-heads spread, the milkweed down drifting clear, The maple keys, all paper-winged and spun To earth. There are few simple joys quite like Throwing these little propellers up, out, And watching them descend: there’s time alike To make a wish and calculate the route: What path it charts, our next steps, lovely clock For dreaming what one seed, one key, unlocks.
2.
~with a line after Toni Morrison
She said, and she would know: for those rising Into positions of trust and power— Let us dream a little before we think. Let the dream be large, dreamy, surprising, In grace and scope; make a tree big enough To shade everyone who comes, no pruning It narrow. A dream is a tree, no hedge Dividing this yard from that. It is such A great privilege and honor, dream-making: What is built here builds a future for more. We, here, are beholden to this ideal, To nurture each other, firmly staking A claim to include, and thereby excel. What we imagine, with care, we do well.
3. A pelican does not, mythology Aside, feed her young her own torn breast, slake Their thirst without thought for her own. Agree, Though, we are here to give more than we take, To create what will endure and sustain Not simply us, not simply now. The bald
