when they heard the same birds sing
and he was sitting
with the others in a ring
around the ashes knowing
much of what they were saying
as though it were echoing
across water and he was learning
that they had been dreaming
the same dream then they were filing
like water out of the clearing
and he kept recognizing
the face of each thing
the moment it appeared
The poem above is a passage from “The Real World of Manuel Córdova” by W. S. Merwin. I was first introduced to this poem while browsing the many maps the Art Library has in its collection. It is a beautiful poem that is printed on persimmon-washed handmade paper and stretches fifteen feet. The poem tells the story of Manuel Córdova who lived in the Amazon during the early 20th century.
Prior to reading this poem, I had not read many texts in recent years that try to use words to describe the dream state. The poem at times feels disjointed and it was often difficult to distinguish between Córdova’s waking life and dreaming life because they were so intertwined. At the end of April I began to record my own dreams in the Voice Memo app on my phone while I was still constructing the physical dream journal. The journal itself is made of recycled fabric, paper, thread, seeds from the Oberlin community and is a map of my dreamscape and the people close to me. I have begun to write in this journal shortly after the new moon in May. The mapping part of the project is a work in progress as I have only planted one page of my journal under a tree outside my bedroom window.
I have never kept a dream journal and one of the joys of this project, in addition to remembering more of my dreams, is hearing about the dreams of the people in my life. I told my classmates about this unexpected joy and how I feel like a dream collector and my professor aptly said I was a “dream catcher.” More on the mapping project soon.