Dreams and Hopes

DREAMS and HOPES

From the beginning

Of life it seems

We are led about

By our dreams

 

The desires and hopes

Seem to know no scope

The future is bright

Within our sight

Bringing with hope

Promising delight

 

As time goes by

We begin to question why

The hopes and dreams fade

Or worse yet

In their impossibility

Our minds are set

 

We look around at what is needed

Our dreams go by unheeded

We focus on the day by day

And pass our life by

 in this passionless way

 

Instead of reaching we settle

Not daring to test our mettle

Hoping, less and less

For our life’s dreams to be addressed

 

As time flows by faster and faster

And we speed towards the ever after

Perchance we may find our dreams again

Or refine them and not worry for when

 

The things that us surround

And have been allowed to abound

Lose their hold on us

And show that they are but dust

And the reality that revives

Are the dreams that bring us alive

And towards now

 we can reach and strive

-Shiidon, September 2008

Well, this poem is about dreams and hopes.  I remember one class I taught in China.  I had watched the children I was teaching and saw a pattern.  The third graders were beginning to learn about the joys of being and becoming individuals.  The fourth graders were striving to learn and had dreams and hopes.  It was in the fifth grade that things changed.  I saw dreams slip away. The girls becoming more docile and complacent, the boys more aggressive and unruly.

I reflected on this for a time and began to form a class.  Each week I would plan out a class on what subject to teach for the week.  The class I taught was on dreams.  I taught them the vocabulary of dreams, not the going to sleep dreams but our dreams for ourselves and others.  I emphasized the need to keep ones dreams alive.  I assured them that there was much to feed our hopelessness but that it was important to keep striving.  I brought up an example.  I had spend a lot of money in 1979 for a red leather bound book on china with a large gold dragon on it.  It was one of the first really informative books on China by the National Geographic Society.  I told them how much I studied the photographs of that book and the desire I had to someday go to China.  I was 18 at the time.  I had also wanted to be a teacher throughout my life.  I appreciated what my teachers could do to inspire and facilitate my learning.  I stood before then and said that here I was, twenty years later, teaching and living in China.  Never give up.  Remember your hopes and dreams, never settle in desperation and be patient for the right thing, time or person to come along.

What I have learned, is that dreams can and do come true.