AllFreeNovel
Share Us
over the winter prairies and small towns
black as silt
along the riverbanks
Wade in the water
Wade in the water, people, black
As me.
Oh, my brothers,
And where is this crown for the good
of our brotherhood
For what is brotherhood
From sea to shining, when will you see?
Which America will it be?
Memphis mailed the poem to Woody.
Then he wrote out three more copies and left them around town for anyone who had a mind to listen.
WHERE WE WILL MEET
Dreams are gateways to the other worlds.
Worlds we perceive just out of sight, in a bar of music or a stranger’s face.
Dreams are where daring is born. “However did you get the courage to do that?” “Why, it came to me in a dream.…”
Dreams are the shadow self let loose. You could murder in a dream, just pick up an ax and split anyone you like right through the skull, then rise the next day, safe in your bed, with nothing more than a vague feeling of slight unease that’s gone—poof!—the minute you walk out your door. Dreams take the unconscious desires you let loose inside their houses off to the cleaners so you don’t have to see the mess.
Dreams are where we will meet again. In love. In yearning. In fear.
Dreams, like countries, are ideas; all reality gestates first inside a dream.
Dreams are information for those who will read their tea leaves come morning. They are tiny little maps of the soul. Of every secret we push aside while we are awake. Of each tiny red-balloon hope whose dangling string we might reach for. Dreams connect us to every living thing, from the tiniest pea shoot to the rocks hurtling through space.
Dreams are miracles.
Dreams are portents.
Dreams know you better than you know yourself. They know everything.
Pay attention.
Henry DuBois IV walked through this dream’s mirrored rooms, passing every one of his selves but not really seeing, and when he opened the door at the end of that long glass hallway, there was a giant map in front of him. The map took up the whole of the sky. Where there might be constellations there were road lines and tiny black dots of towns, squiggly red river markers and embossed mountain ranges. A globe come to life all around him. But what seemed static at first was not; every bit of the map moved just slightly as Henry looked at it, till it seemed he was seeing the echoes of the land it was before and possibly the direction it would take in the future. Dreams are not static. Neither are maps. Listen, this map seemed to whisper. All of time and space exists at once. Dimensions fold upon themselves. Borders are arbitrary. Empires rise and fall. Towns come, towns go. The river is never the same from second to second. Ephemeral—great word, look it up.
“Where’s Ling?” Henry said, ignoring the voice.
“Henry!” Just like that, it was Ling Chan calling his name. They’d found each other. Dreams let that happen sometimes.
“Ling! Ling!” Henry waved his arms wildly.
