Heroes Not Zombies

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt – marvellous error! –

that a spring was breaking

out in my heart.

I said: Along which secret aqueduct,

Oh water, are you coming to me,

water of a new life

that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt – marvellous error! –

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt – marvellous error! –

that a fiery sun was giving

light inside my heart.

It was fiery because I felt

warmth as from a hearth,

and sun because it gave light

and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,

I dreamt – marvellous error! –

that is was God I had

here inside my heart.

Last Night As I Was Sleeping, is a poem by Antonio Machado (this translation from the original Spanish is by the poet, Robert Bly). I’ve decided to return to an exploration of poetry during this strange time in our world, and have started by reading “Ten poems to change your life”, by Roger Housden. The first poem in the book is The Journey, by Mary Oliver, and the second one is this one by Antonio Machado.

Roger Housden, who says, of Antonio Machado, “He lived a plain and simple existence, much of it as a country schoolteacher. What mattered to him was the deep current that joins the human soul to the world. What mattered above all to him was to be awake to that deeper life.”

I love the images in this poem, starting with the spring of fresh water breaking out in the heart. “The origin of the spring is not in your own heart; its waters are carried there by some secret aqueduct from a source beyond all your knowing”.

Then in the next verse he talks of making sweet honey from our old failures. What a nice variation on the “when life gives you lemons make lemonade”!

The next image is of the sun shining in his heart. Roger Housden says “Machado becomes the source of his own warmth and light”.

In the final stanza where Machado dreams of God in his heart, Housden says “He dares to leap over metaphor altogether and say directly what he has been inferring all along: you are own source, drink from your own well, live by your own undying light……..the light of the world that streams through your life….”

I found that as I read it various of my own photos came to my mind so I thought I’d collect them together here with the poem. What I really love about this poem is that idea of the flow of Life pouring through the depths of our being and found by looking at what we have in our heart.