Poem: In Dreams

In Dreams

One spring night long ago, sitting on a farmhouse porch

in a remote part of Pennsylvania, you swear you saw

a trio of UFO’s just above the southern horizon,

their movements choreographed like the old

June Taylor dancers on the Gleason show.

Your face had that dreamy Close Encounters look,

but this was pre-Spielberg, if you can imagine that. 

You remember the time two psychics, several months

and a thousand miles apart, predicted your future.

Both said the same thing, and both times

you were waiting tables and it didn’t cost you a dime.

They told you because they had to, they said. And they were right.

You’re in that future now, and it’s one you couldn’t have dreamed of,

not back then when you thought you were Kerouac’s brother,

would have a similar end. 

Two years ago your phone rang one morning

and it was him, the one you dreamed of for thirty years,

calling to say I’m sorry and maybe you could

be friends again. And now you are, and those

old Ponderosa Pines you used to admire

still stand majestic and snow covered

on that quiet Colorado mountainside,

like time’s sentinels. 

In recent months, men you know of a certain age

came home from exercising, said “I don’t feel well,”

and died before they hit the floor. Another you saw

on the roadside covered with an orange tarp

his bike neatly propped beside him on its kickstand.

It comes to this, you think to yourself,

for all the UFO’s, psychics and joyful reunions

it comes to this. 

And then you sleep and dream of flying,

Low over a rugged landscape,

Or of that gentle faceless lover whose warmth surrounds you,

or of trout dimpling a quiet stream in a deep wood.

Then you awaken, begin another day, waiting, wondering

your heart’s occasional flutter

reminding you of life.