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Page 83

I once worked for an organization,
writing reports that had to go on pink paper
(to distinguish them from the white sheets --
in the same folder -- whose data they summarized) --

pink; it was policy. But, not being in the pink,
sometimes we ran out of pink
before we ran out of urgently needed reports,
so at the top of a white sheet, in big letters,
I would print (underlined and circled) the word
"PINK,"
and enter my report.

(After all, the policies were headed "Policy.")

Your dreams (the ones you've never noticed,
surrounding you as invisibly and vitally as air --
air within the air you breathe, a twinkling, as if
the full moon had dissolved and turned to slow snow) --
your dreams are shy. It takes a pure blankness
to draw them out, to tease you into
making them visible to yourself.

You have run out of blankness. These poems
I scribble on pages are here to lead you
to that blankness in which your dreams
(like your breath on a cold day) appear.
Each poem marks the page for you, labeling it
BLANK.

Note: If you stare at a blank sheet long enough, images will appear, and with more staring, become more vivid and solid. One's own mind (consisting mainly of images fancied or of past experience) can be rendered visible – you just have to look. The images are there (and not necessarily in the brain or even in the body, though probably in the body's field). They have mass. That's why, when past experiences of impact or injury (for example) are stirred up, they can become vivid and include re-experiencing pain and pressure and other sensations. But even when past experiences are light and joyful, they can be seen more clearly when nothing else intervenes or distracts. (People who spend enough time in sensory deprivation settings can scarcely differentiate between thought and "actuality".) Trying to see one's own dreams in a world all a-fizz with the manufactured dreams we call commercials, TV noise, computer demands and small talk is like trying to view stars from Times Square or the Vegas Strip – too much light pollution. All but a few stars are invisible, as unreal as, to most of us, our own dreams.

There's lots of room on a paper that has been written on – one could write between the lines, in the margins, etc. But I find it easier to see my poem if the page is blank when I begin.

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