I Had a Dream When I Was Young

I had a glistening dream when I was young Bright as an orange on October tree Near as the horizon on the rim of the sea Sweet as mango sweating in the grass Clear as the crystal of the hour glass I had a dream when I was young Caught in the web of my forerunners' vision Not even in sleep could I fall into oblivion I shew the world my dream yesterday Let them touched it My coat of many colors leaking through their hands My map of El Dorado across the pearly sands They touched my mimosa, touched my goatskin Getting ready in the sun to become my drum All I would sing is another song of me Of ancient cadence, rhyming with theirs my beauty And all the while I did not know I should have asked them how to climb ladders With my greasy appendages They covered me with the oil of their gladness Snickering at my feathers clammy with expectations I, poor Icarus, shackled in my father's genius To cheat the minotaur and melt in the sun Life is not a struggle to understand our dreams It is for a longing to escape that the heart screams And yet my dream keep hanging on Even when the big fish swallowed me Even when I cried fruitlessly Under the calabash tree, my dream is young And I growing old, must follow it still I have known adventures following that star. Now the dream has me Yearning for the rainbow with my pot of gold We cannot journey unless we believe, no one returns From yesterday, tomorrow in forever churns.