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Told in a Dream

Dreamed between 1965 & '71 by Kathleen Raine

'You have a hundred months to live,' I was told in a dream,
The speaker unknown, but the words plain:
Waking into this world, my death nearer than I had known.
What to the immortal signifies number or months or years?
Up and down the light is woven, a golden skein,
But how hold the living clue that runs time out of mind?

I, standing before the superhuman within, above me,
Glimpsed and gone, "It will be enough," I replied,
Pledging my human time to enact a timeless will.

Little is enough, where of each part there is so great a whole;
Myself, or any self, must answer so,
What, of the poem I write, the life that lives me, can I know?

SOURCE: Collected Poems by Kathleen Raine, 2001, p.176

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

True, a deadline can help you finish that work you've been procrastinating... but Kathleen Raine, born in 1908, died in 2003 at age 95! That Authoritative Voice was about 30 years off. Worth remembering, the next time some flaming angel tells you something.

--Chris Wayan


LISTS AND LINKS: oracles - dream advice & warnings in general - longevity - hurry! - oaths & promises - dream poems - more Kathleen Raine - not knowing can be just as troubling: Meteor or Star?

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