Someone Remembered Snow Cones In My Dream Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

to Ray Bradbury, for the story "To The Chicago Abyss"

someone remembered snow cones in my dream

a person I had never seen in real life

how funny I have often thought



the distinction between dreams and real life

except that in dreams you don't pay bills

or trudge up hills that make your muscles ache



but to get back to the snow cone

it was brought up in a casual way

and I knew out of everyone in the room



the dream room, I was the only one there

who knew why the man spoke of it and that it mattered

because he wanted to remember that



and not the original topic of conversation

which the dream did not remember either

in fact, some would call the dream remiss



and just for this



though I insist

blessed be the dream that makes allowances

where the most astonishing things are not off topic



off message or ever conceived as such

for much have we also wandered

in the realms of gold



taking all the side roads even after Keats

and it is meet after long drudgery to suppose



even to long



for any interposition at any time as though

we were children waiting for the assignment to begin when

suddenly



we were in the kingdom of roses we made up



my sister and I in all our summer waking

when dreams spilled out into daylight

for the taking and the fairy tale adjudged



it right for snows to fall on the rosebuds overnight



but I'm talking about a public scene

the venue for some purpose with the

carpet in style from other decades



the complimentary buffet

implied the working dream day

in any meeting room, let it be assumed glorious



for saints or angels to float down or chime

and for this to seem normal to



bypass the facilitator



and not to cause a flurry the children had

the snows come early, early Christmas too

and there was not one rule that could govern the skies



or put us wise to news reports breaking over us like waves

like waves



that meant to drown us

ah, to no avail.



mary angela douglas 5 october 2019