Aoi Bungaku

In high school French class, I recall

a student asked Madame if she thought in French

and being an Anglophone she said no, not usually –

though if she spent enough time thinking about it,

she would begin to think in it.

Likewise, I

not only think but also dream in other languages.

In the haze of sleep madness, fervent fever,

words make themselves known to me –

emerge as grey crows, discernible

only by outlines in the fog.

They glow like ash in flickering blue

torchlight, cast by sweetly burning resin.

I dream of staying with a French family,

and though I understand them effortlessly

I struggle to translate my own words in “real time.”

Strange how messages that begin and end

in my head need only convert one way.

甘い

あまい

amai

sweet

            I speak to myself in dreams, and I

            cannot escape this word.

amai amai amai amai amaiamaiamaiamaiamaimaiaa

AM = to be

愛 / あい / AI = love

to be love.

sweet.

I wake with Gloria in excelsis Deo in my mind

and know at my core that after thousands of years,

we have not changed these words because dead

language is the language of angels.

aoi bungaku

blue literature

            …blue, or green, or fresh, or unripe.

Bittersweet language of dreams waiting to become