The Best Thing About a Dream
ASE Alum Sam Kennedy (Sp25, Oberlin) weaves a Write Night narrative poem sharing the best things about the dream of studying abroad in Bath.
Sam (third from left to right) and friends at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre during ASE’s Stratford Residential
Do you want to know what the best thing about a dream is?
It could start in the hollows of the mind where the light can’t reach, when the candle’s low and the moonlight’s bleak, when you haven’t got a clue what your heart might seek, but perhaps it could start with a scruffy-tidy man with a held-out hand and a promise to keep—his promise, oh promise, oh promise me this: what I’m buying, you’re selling. So you better deliver, God forbid it be cheap. But that’s the delusion, the madness that eats—every contract I sign, every file and lease . . . Sam, you’d better know better, no more, at the least, that transactions you make are inactions to dream . . . quieter, clearer now, louder for the back . . . of a room I could see and no sooner forget than the fog at the morning of the second month’s end when the steeples bit air and the light drank dew.
There I was at my window, just sipping my tea—soon an accent I’d have, or it would have me. So I sprang into action and Anglicised me: I said “sorry,” wore trousers, had milk in my tea, and sang out and rang out with whimsy and glee. How apt, “the light thickens,” said Andrew to me, with his buttery smile and arms outstretched wide; I know he could just hug the world if he tried. Oh secrets of here, tell me all that you hide, barrow mounds piled over old monarchs that died—that’s the thing, isn’t it? Here, the history’s alive—I can see it, I can feel it, I can taste it sometimes.
Why in the world would you bury alive all your hopes and your dreams in the back of your mind? Don’t think about breathing, just hold it and dive—belt an ode to the cobblestones as the bells chime; don’t look back, don’t look down . . . so draw water and ride cresting waves farther inland than seagulls can find.
Yes, the pigeons and sky-rats, I’ll miss them in kind . . . they were here before us and they won’t bat an eye, but the humans, oh humans, oh people of life, they will cherish each smile and wave for all time. Although buried or rusted or covered in slime, some fragments yet stay, made crystalline. I say nothing can stop it, I say let them try. We summited hills, we breached the skyline. We stormed into castles and castles and castles, fought great battles on rivers and rallied our forces, flew leagues over seas for foreign alliances, met knights and freemasons and dragons and fae, which for ASE staff is . . . just a regular day.
No, I promise, believe me, I’m not here to stay, I’m a bard much more humble than that guy who wrote the plays. . . . I’ll be honest, I’m embarrassed, I’m in Paris, I’m in paradise . . . nice! I’m in Nice, on a viking, away, but gone isn’t really a place I can stay.
Pull me closer so it doesn’t feel so far away. . . . Wait, wait, let me get this straight: palms sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy—why is that? Oh, that’s right, I’ve been trying to carry this city on my back, a tough cargo to ferry—but if the ocean was a tub I could float it, no worry, summon courage, breathe out, it’s only a few good columns and chimneys and waterspouts. What burden is that, these things that I’ll carry, like Frodo to Mordor, oh Sam, won’t you carry me? Sand in the hourglass fills almost full and Sandman tiptoes into the window. I could dance till my feet are blistered and sore but I fear whatever I do won’t help anymore. The chorus is singing, the curtain is drawn, the flats will be empty, our laughter all gone. . . . I used to like silence, but this time it’ll sting, for where nothing is come will die everything. Every castle will crumble, every weapon will rust, every song will then echo in great halls of dust, and I think to myself, there’s no way, but I must.
The mind is a trap . . . so let’s open it up.
When I’m gone and I’m old maybe Pulteney will miss the skip of our footsteps amidst utter bliss, andall of you, maybe some time or another, will dust off the rust or the cobwebs and dive back into that time when your breath was held or taken away before the bubbles in the bath popped out into air and you broke from the depths of a weeks-long dream and breathed home air.
Except . . . I don’t know about you, but I sneeze less here. Believe it or not, I prefer the air. So I’ll pack up my things and carry on air a promise fulfilled and a full head of hair. And the castles will crumble, and dust will fall, as if I was never there at all.
But I’m forgetful, you see, so gather and hear. I remembered just now, that truth I learned here: The best thing about a dream is that when you wake, if you’re careful and listen, it just might stay.
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