Poem Tryouts: Dream the Summer Away

7:41 a.m. — Atlanta

listening to Familia sung by Badi and Clarice Assad with Yo Yo Ma

Hello, everyone. In a summer when I’m on the road more often than not, I pick dreams, about which I know nothing, as my focal topic for prompts? Really? Well, it might be easier than fighting the brain, which insists. It does mean a series of prompts that are not quite as light as my summer prompts usually are. The caveat, as you know, is always that you can read the prompt, shrink with horror at the thinking involved, and adapt like mad.

Curious, I looked up dream’s etymology before creating our first prompt and am so fascinated, that has become the first prompt.

The word ‘dream’ is thought to be derived from (at its earliest) Proto-Germanic, meaning:  deception, illusion, or phantasm, with a side of Old Norse, meaning: ghost or apparition. The Old English definition of dream as something to do with joy, mirth, noisy merriment, and music, comes from a different root, altogether, and is not thought to be a connected word. We can play with that later.

Dreams as we think of them, a series of images or thought passing through our minds when asleep, did not come about until the mid-13th century. Let us leave this one for another time and go back to the original meanings.

Answer, in some form, the question, How are dreams deception, illusion, phantasm, ghost or apparition? There are differences in the meanings, so choose one, or more. The word ‘dream’ does not have to be in the poem.

I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I will see you Thursday for links; Friday for the week’s roundup of prompts; and Tuesday for our next dream prompt. I’m off to pack some more, or at least look at stuff.

Happy writing, all.