Last Night As I Lay Sleeping by Machado

 

Antonio Machodo who gave me the line “the wind one brilliant day called”, also assists healing with this poem:

Last night as I lay sleeping, 

I dreamed”oh blessed art!” 

of fountain water leaping 

and flowing in my heart. 

“Where is the hidden channel,” 

I cried, “that was equipped 

to bring to me this spring of life 

from which I never sipped?” 

Last night as I lay sleeping, 

I dreamed”oh blessed art!” 

a hive of bees was reaping 

its nectar in my heart. 

The worker bees so golden 

were filling up the cracks 

with sorrows they converted 

into honey and white wax. 

Last night as I lay sleeping, 

I dreamed”oh blessed art!” 

a burning sun was steeping 

the blood within my heart. 

I know that it was burning. 

I felt its heat inside. 

I know that it was sunlight. 

It shone, and then I cried. 

Last night as I lay sleeping, 

I dreamed”oh blessed art!” 

that God himself was keeping 

watch inside my heart.

The “blessed art” of dreaming may somehow be associated with the blessed gift of healing. “Sorrows they converted into honey and white wax” speaks to me of the process and the work involved in transforming pain into something sweet and useful or even mundane. 

Like all conversions and transformations grief is a process. It hurts. And in that process there is something like the heat of a crucible repairing and re-membering. 

There are moments when we realize that “our hearts are burning” and that is both painful and hopeful. It may be God’s forge of grace.