The Dreams
His blue overalls never tied,
One strap hanging on his dingy gray;
he moves silently and with purpose.
he moves silently and with purpose.
His face always a-slant, brown skin never a smile
He is a large mound of a man.
[ a purity of spirit wears He
like a cloak upon his broad shoulders,
if he a warrior of the Iliad be
His worthy epithet would speak of quiet grace
and the wives and children with happiness
for the men He'd saved]
[ a purity of spirit wears He
like a cloak upon his broad shoulders,
if he a warrior of the Iliad be
His worthy epithet would speak of quiet grace
and the wives and children with happiness
for the men He'd saved]
Never still, as He blinks
Into one brass ring challenge after another.
He is deft, oddly focused.
The brass nut matched perfectly to the brass screw
All over the house in so many sizes
Carriage bolts to eyeglass rims
Always he is there matching and tightening the bolts
But nowhere as assiduously and concerning
As the great sliding file cabinet.
Some say His mind is dim—to me, there is an inner light,
a being content to flourish in his world.
[For faith comes when there is doubt
it pierces like the burst of dawn
that dissolved the solid wall of night
as if it had never been]
[For faith comes when there is doubt
it pierces like the burst of dawn
that dissolved the solid wall of night
as if it had never been]
The mahogany wood panel
Has a centered and ornate handle
and so many brass screw heads
They make a pattern – if you let your mind step back
Step wa-a-a-y back, it is star cluster
No…the Orion Nebula—bright young stars
Gleam as if on their own
The great file sits in quiet shadow—it is a quiet place.
~ The next Dream~
The great file with glistening brass screw heads,
The gleaming mystery sits ajar
As I pass I stop involuntary, the air gone missing
I see within the drawer a woman’s face in profile-
She has dark hair and eyebrows, the brown skin is soft
and seems somehow new
“it’s His Mother..” my host speaks to me at last
“She was about to die—and He placed her there—
She is not gone and she is not here—she rests”
I turned to ask the first of a cascade
And I was alone again—until He came in
Adding a new brass gleam and carefully tightening it
He gently, lovingly closed the drawer.
~ The last dream ~
I sit at the table, a quill and ink my tools
The flickered candle breathes as I do
A slow and steady state—and I wonder
Why it is I that must divine
The life within God’s last tear
The universes that hang in the wells of her eyes
As the last feather floats towards the floor
The end of her patience- the unimagined
Fall
I raise eyes from my task
And he has returns with a sparkle and a matching ring
He adds this latest gem and leaves – the drawer is open
And I see, fluttered eyes, lips that move…
My host springs forward to open the drawer.
Now, the landing below - barefoot in basement hard cement
on stair my alabaster host, her long white hair- stare at me as she
Is the crutch --- Mother walks now
Unsteady but smiling- step down by step down
- Decensus Averni Facile-
And now Mother sits, skin a glow
and He scurries down with flowers and starred eyes
Mother at a bare wooden table, She gleams—
My host and He go upstairs; leaving excited sounds—
I turn to Mother
She is younger—she is un-aging
as I watch, time flow backwards
In her hair, skin, and eyes
She is young -Mother, now girl-Mother—
My lips open to exhort to all-
“Come see this—she is going to heaven…”
Sweet child, on the wings of Love
~ Denouement~
in the morning when I woke
I had a lump in my throat
A pain in my chest—I felt empty
The dream was gone and fading-
My dream, was un-aging, going to heaven
And God’s last tear—remained on my pen
In the endless wells of her eyes.
Sweet child, on the wings of Love
Light carries you into boundless realms
In time and space you fill a place
Ordained for you
before the first feather, until the last tear.
