I dreamt the other night that I could cope
With knowing that my husband feels he's lost
Some round in a great fight with mortal stuff.
But Orestes also knew he'd just mope,
Until he acted to redeem the cost
His body needs, to show it could bear enough
Pain in itself, equal to that his love
Feels. So tonight's cold dream finds me in flight
Of all the Furies, who buzz like those flies
Sartre imagined, not Aeschylus's mad
Demi-gods. They eagerly lay down larva
In my magotty body still alive.
To dream of hubris humbled is not quite
Enough to salve the fear that fosters flight.
But day will come in faint beginning
Led by greybeard wizards of hope singing.
Because I wrote of Hamlet’s dreams last night in my blog, my dreaming took a turn to the stuff of proper retribution: fear of not responding enough or appropriately to the pain of those you love. Let’s try tomorrow to return to compassion and hope the Furies transmute to my hopeful Eumenides and keep us both, Geoff and me, safer a little longer.
NOTE:
Les Mouches is Sartre’s attempt to imagine The Oresteia for his times. These lines of verse contain, but only just [but enough I hope to sleep again], a personal nightmare nowhere near as existential – and trying to be more hopeful at the end. For Sartre see:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flies
In the version I wrote last night – all mixed up – I confused Aeschylus with Euripides. Lol. It happens when I am stressed. Lol. Xxxx
With love
Steven xxxxx
Steve_Bamlett_blog 