Green Poem & Green Art by Dawn Bratton
Green Goddess Art by Dawn Bratton
The Green Poem
This poem thinks green.
You know, once an aura-reader at a meditation group told me I was green, I thought he was crazy.
now? a green moment has presented itself.
this lush expanse stretched out by the daughters of dream,
the dream that knows it’s a dream (even if a leafy, mint-toned one).
Wake up! Wake up! I mean, go to sleep, go to sleep
there there: the Dream.
the dream that dreams and knows it’s dreaming
the dream that wakes and forgets itself with a headache
the dream that postures and pretends to be someone else
the dream that is eternally playing dress-up in the void
the dream that talks to itself on TV
the dream that overhears itself in the next room
the dream that makes too much noise and annoys itself
the dream that wants to tell itself to cut it out
the dream that should cut itself a break instead
the dream that cries itself to sleep at night
the dream that eats too much ice cream when it’s depressed
the dream that has a cavity in its right bottom molar
the dream that worries about next month’s dental bill
the dream that goes to sleep hoping to wake up another dream
the dream that is eternally searching for itself
the dream that recognizes itself in a glance
the dream that falls madly in love with itself
the dream that falls silently on itself in winter
the dream that grows under its own feet
the dream that eats itself
the dream that gives birth to itself
the dream that is you,
the dream that is me.
the dream of this song, of life, every moment—
an infinite joke in proportion.
me, the biggest joke of all, my entire pretended existence one monumental pretense.
the dream that is always building itself and disintegrating,
the dream that rearranges itself in infinite ways,
the dream that is always returning to itself.
the dream that can only return if it thinks it left itself:
hence, the Green Poem, both in thought and intention
because only when a green moment has itself, does it recognize itself.
and I am so grateful for these emerald and sage reflections
I want to drop to my knees and cry jade tears of forgiveness
I could spend the remainder of my life attempting to pay back this verdant instant
and I hear purple goes well with green, aesthetically speaking.
are you purple?
6/20/19
This poem originally appeared in Mary: A Journal of New Writing (Saint Mary's College), Summer 2020 issue.
Dawn Bratton lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she has found a quiet corner to write poetry and prose that orbits the image of eyes and theme of perception as the gateway to the universe of experience. Always motivating her work is the impulse to illuminate experience through the creative act. During 2021 - 2023 she volunteered for WordSwell, a literary organization and online journal based out of Oakland, CA, where she served as secretary and then as vice president; and in 2023, she helped co-founded Moon Blossom Collective. Her poetry has recently appeared in Oracle, Matter, The Opiate, Modern Literature, The Metaworker, Global Poemic, and Disquiet Arts, among other literary journals. Visit her at dawnbratton.com.
