In England, the night before my return to Minnesota, I dream I am conducting a big orchestra, maybe the Chicago Symphony. I feel good, in control, until I see that Dvorak himself is playing first cello. My confidence goes, I glance down to see who the soloist is. Whoever it is will have to cope with the composer there in person. It will be a disaster and I will be responsible.

But all's well: the soloist is Picasso! I and the orchestra recede a little, as well we might, while Dvorak and Picasso play a duet for two cellos, variations on the American folk tunes from the concerto.

I have woken from nightmares when I could not take the terror, but now I wake (or dream that I wake) because I cannot bear the happiness produced by the music. It's about three in the morning. I lie back, looking up at the dark ceiling. Tears of joy form in the corners of my eyes and trickle down my cheeks to damp the pillow. A mini brain-storm follows, based on the recurring images of bow and cello.

I walk across an open field. My upright body is the bow, the globe of the earth beneath me is the cello. The dense planet itself is set in the arc of the heavens: the earth is the bow, the universe the cello. Flying back to the States, I sit in the body of the Boeing. I am the bow, the jumbo jet the cello. The plane cuts across America, bow and cello again, and again when crossing Minnesota.

Peeing in the toilet bowl, parking a car, making love to a woman, each repeats the pattern. By now, thihgs are out of hand. I try to snap out of it. I really wake this time, or think I do. I go downstairs for a cup of coffee. I look down: it's not a cup, it's a bowl, and across the bowl lies a spoon...

SOURCE: The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writers' Dreams by Nicholas Royle, p.39.
DATE: Burns lived and taught in Minnesota in 1977-78. He says return; I assume he means it was home at the time; but after moving back to Britain he did return to teach for some years, so the dream could be later.

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