Uncertain Oneiromancy
dreamed 1993? by Denise Levertov
|
I spent the entire night leading a blind man
through an immense museum so that (by internal bridges, or tunnels? somehow!) he could avoid the streets, the most dangerous avenues, all the swift chaotic traffic . . . I persuaded him to allow my guidance, through to the other distant doors, though once inside, labyrinthine corridors, steps, jutting chests and chairs and stone arches bewildered him as I named them at each swerve, and were hard for me to manoeuver him around and between. As he could perceive nothing, I too saw only the obstacles, the objects with sharp corners; not one painting, not one carved credenza or limestone martyr. We did at last emerge, however, into that part of the city he had been headed for when I took over; he raised his hat in farewell, and went on, uphill, tapping his stick. I stood looking after him, watching as the street enfolded him, wondering if he would make it, and after I woke, wondering still what in me he was, and who the I was that took that long short-cut with him through room after room of beauty his blindness hid from me as if it had never been. |
EDITOR'S NOTE
"Uncertain Oneiromancy" is one of Levertov's late poems, published in Sands of the Well (New Directions, 1996). I don't know exactly when she dreamt it, but 1993 seems likely, give or take a year.
Her title suggests her own interpretation of the dream. Isn't this not-blind-but-as-if-blind groping how we usually stumble through dreams, and how we interpret them, waking? We may grasp immediacies, but our horizon's close in. Might as well be blind.
I don't find Levertov's idea far-fetched. Indeed, I'd argue her interpretation isn't just her waking mind finding a lesson in the dream; I'm sure the dream intended to comment on dream interpretation. Dreams are quite capable of commenting on themselves, on dreamwork, on how we get lost in the task at hand--even generosity--until we're blind to dreams' beauty--which may indeed be, as the dream hints, their real message.
I'll go further. To a literate dreamworker, and Levertov surely was, the dream's choice of imagery prods her to realize it's about dreaming itself. Groping through a labyrinthine underworld full of antique art... come on, it's more Jungian than Jung's own dreams!
--Chris Wayan
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