Do You Travel in Your Dreams?

We all know that Frost poem about how he can't stop in those deep dark woods because he has miles to go before sleep. Well, Albert Goldbarth keeps the journey going - refusing to accept that there is no traveling with sleep. So it becomes something like - miles to go before I sleep and miles to go in my sleep. But what a different journey that is. Close your eyes and take off on some "inward flying": sometimes you wonder whose driving then and where you're going - but you are going.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

". . . miles to go before I sleep," says Frost,

as if at last, at night,

the eyes shut, and the mind shuts,

And the journey halts. Of course

that's wrong. All day and into the dusklight

at this flyway stop the waterfowl

-- as plump as pillows, some of the them; and others

small and sleek--have settled abob

in the wash of the river; and here,

by the hundred, they've tucked their heads

inside the wing; inside that dark

and private sky. The outward flying is done

for now, and the inward flying begins.

All one, to the odometer.

---- Albert Goldbarth