Thanks to the workshop led by poet Cathy Smith Bowers at the annual Haden Institute Dream Conference, I learned a new form for poetry - the pantoum. The pantoum, a series of repetitive quatrains was first written in Malaysia in the fifteenth-century. This is my first attempt; I haven't quite decided on the title:

The black mandala holds the answer

I am wandering around in the darkness.

There is nothing but black to be seen.

I don’t feel I’m in danger of falling.

I just don’t know where I am.

It is black so there’s nothing to see.

I walk slowly but without groping.

I just don’t know where I am.

Then I think, why on earth don’t I call you?

I walk slowly but without groping;

I don’t need my hands to shield me.

Then I think why on earth don’t I call you?

We’re still friendly – it’s silly not to.

I don’t need my hands to guide me.

I am safe here though all is black.

We’re still friendly – there’s no reason not to.

I should call you; we talked just a while back.

I am safe? Where all is black,

Without land marks or buildings or roads,

I must call you. We haven’t talked for some time.

Then slowly I start to realize, “It’s not me, it’s him.”

There are no landmarks or buildings or roads, but

Is dirt ploughed up all around me?

Then slowly I start to realize, “It’s not me, it’s him.”

And now on the cusp of awaking, I just want to go back to sleep.

But is dirt ploughed up all around me?

There’s a sense of not much being there.

Now on the cusp of awaking, I just want to get back to sleep.

But a new fact slips into my dream.

There’s a sense of not much being there –

Just the blackness and overturned earth –

When this new fact is put to me:

You can’t call him because he is dead.

***

So, I’m not in danger of falling,

I just don’t know where I am.