MNEMOSYNE AUBADE

MNEMOSYNE AUBADE – for Richard Salzman

In sleep, dreams come
flying halfway down to greet you.
And as you rise up to meet them,
the dreams become a part of you,
and you, a part of the dreams.
To those dreams we bring with us
the whole sum of our lives.
Dreams and memories merge and sleep
like a pair of dovetailed hands.
I am seeking your stars in my dreams.
Like night vision, from the corners of your eyes,
you are remembering you can see
how the mantle of death approaches slowly
in the shape of doved fingertips.

10/13/1982

Mnemosyne, roughly translated, means speak-memory.
She is the goddess of memory, a Titaness, and the mother of the Muses, by Zeus.
The revision is so different, it's almost another poem.

WAKING MNEMOSYNE


David Bromige rewrote this from the other version:

It comes down to greet you
and as you rise up, dreams and memory
merging in sleep
like a pair of dove-tailed hands
so the sum of our lives
enters a new waking
as the dream begins,
seeking like night vision
a remembering.
You can see them slowly
approaching in the shape
of doved fingertips
the mantle of stars drops
over your death
lifts away from your death.