taught by the subconscious

truth from dream

last night my subconscious shook me awake about 4:00 a.m.,

my dream full of righteous anger and implausible story,

I thought and thought, and felt,

and suddenly my dullness sharpened,

and cut into my ignorance,

an “aha!” moment

when I realized who the driver was

of an anxiousness that can live in me,

my rational self does process cleanly, surely,

but it takes a submerged self

to slip me truth in the dead of the night,

truth I need to face

and cannot without the help of nightmare,

or even just a dream

that in itself seems of minimal power,

but that, to me, slaps me with a truth

I’d rather not appreciate.

by Henry H. Walker

April 19, ‘16