Tongues (The Dream)

/ Daniel Swearingen

Grammy takes the clothes pin, and she runs it across the metal line.  The wire hinge on the two wooden pegs connects with the line, and a screech of metal on metal fills the hot humid Missouri morning.  Grammy’s strawberry bonnet bobs up and down in time as she moves the clothes pin, back and forth across the line.  “Listen” she says, turning towards me, her Cherokee eyes are laughing, “it’s talking in tongues”.  “I don’t hear it”, I say, I’m lying on the damp grass, holding a weed Tom Sawyer like between my teeth.  “It’s a spirit tongue” she says her eyes dancing and then beginning to float.  “You have to listen”, she says.  And my Grammy, my precious, precious Grammy goes away

My dreams I think are like puzzles, each piece moving, to find its place, and just like the vision I had last night, I’m eleven once again, listening to Karen Carpenter, make love to me in grace.  And Grammys there before dawns morning light, her words float by my face, she’s teaching me about things up above, the languages most of my life I cannot face.  And she speaks before I can acknowledge, her words leaving marks behind my face.  She’s a witness from a fallen race.  She instills love in tongues of the angels, speaking beyond hearing and place.  This dream I think it’s symphonic, retired to such a place.  The world going round, what’s lost but then found, an old woman’s wisdom, I can’t replace.

She turns her simple blue dress blurring, the world has grown so still, listen she breathes, her fingers interweaved, and in tongues I believe we are chaste.  For listen to what the storm tells you, put your ear to rocks and the land, and when the time comes, touch metal, climb rungs, and listen until you have found your perfect place.

I awake upon this new day, the tenth of September, sixteen, but it’s still seventy-two the languages, not new, the tongues still whispering away.  I think of all that has happened, with so many voices inside.  I’m going to decide, my fate has arrived, I’m going to talk in tongues till I hear.  I’ll listen to what the storm tells me, my ear I’ll put to the rock, and the land, and when the time comes, I’ll touch metal, climb rungs, and listen to what my Grammy said, I’ll listen to what she said.

“It’s a spirit tongue” she says her eyes dancing and then beginning to float.  “You have to listen”, she says.  And my Grammy, my precious, precious Grammy goes away.  – 09.10.2016 -דָּנִיֵּאל

47 thoughts on “Tongues (The Dream)”

  6. Daniel, I enjoyed every word, stunning. Dreams like this are a beautiful gift, memories of moments. The whispers are always there, it’s true, you just need to listen. Wishing you a wonderful weekend.
    ~ Mia

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  17. Absolutely stunning piece, Daniel. My grammy (baba) hung her laundry on a line with clothes pegs. I’d ask “can I do that” She’d say “when you get bigger”. I’d wish with my eyes. Then she’d say, let’s go inside. I’ll teach you to make pies! To this day I have never tasted a pie better than the ones I make.

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