Green Was the Dream

 

The First Line Literary Journal has once again inspired a story bringing together far-ranging memories and ideas.  “Green Was the Dream” was subsequently selected for their Volume 25, Issue 2—Summer 2023.  It’s mostly about lawns, a poem of Federico Garcia Lorca’s I read and loved in Spanish class long, long ago, a class trip to Baja, Mario Lanza, and how the world has changed.  (Also a little bit of this and that.)

 

Here's a taste of Cody’s green dream, vastly different from her father’s—

 

“A closet Romantic (with a nostalgic cursive R), Cody despite her guilt can't stop loving that pristine patch of Kentucky bluegrass.  She lies out in it sometimes too, luxuriating, reading the García Lorca poem her class has been assigned, and dreaming herself green, desired, like the woman in the poem, on the Spanish balcony.  Green, how I want you green.  Dreaming that Nolan Ewing, who is (ever so much) in the class, will murmur that into her ear one afternoon, beside her in the sultry shade, or as evening lengthens and deepens into night.  Verde que te quiero verde . . . And then those other dreamy lines, Con la sombra en la cintura, ella sueña en su baranda . . .  With shadow at her waist, she dreams . . .  She traces the shadow of the camphor tree that lies across her skin where her shirt has rucked up, imagining Nolan sitting above her, leaning down, his sun-bleached hair brushing his cheek, and hers.

         Keeping those dreams of green alive for others and not just for her makes her feel powerful and cool, like the sorceress in the Waterhouse painting of Circe (the poster in her bedroom) with her grass green dress and deep green bowl—poison, admittedly.  Dangerous and enthralling.  Unlike the practical Cody of the pert Stoppard-like screenplays, the papers on Lorca and on the donkey, Platero, she writes in competent Spanish with no mistakes.”

 

Image:  Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash