A dream -

I once had a dream
ten years ago
Overwhelmingly powerful
never before or since

I awoke with my heart just before me
drawing me up, forward
I laid there, stiff
my hands crossed upon my sunken chest
powerless to keep that caged bird safe

The dream was of my father. There were 200 mourning people in a horseshoe-shaped room, with a low ceiling and a low peninsular-shaped stage filled with flowers and a coffin. No one spoke, but the little air in the room was thick with grief like the early morning humidity of an April mountain.

I sat in the middle, on te 2nd row, and as I, with my head down and eyes shut, breathed, I could not help but take in their thoughts, absorbed into my bloodstream. Most of the atmosphere was grief, the weight of which was like the warm hand of a doctor, pressing down, searching, understanding what's below the skin and promising healing. Some of the atmosphere, though, was pity, which felt like foodpoisoning. "Those poor boys - they adored him." I didn't need it, not now, not ten years later. Couldn't they see I'm all grown up? Maybe they didn't know it's been ten years. Maybe it hadn't? My head dropped imperceptibly, and my breathing continued to grow heavier and deeper.

The silence was cut by the opening of a door at the back, center of the room. I felt the richness of the atmosphere flow out the open door; their eyes had all turned. I did not move, hoping I could continue breathing the thick grief, but with a couple more breaths, its healing movements were evacuated. Unburdened, I turned to see.

Before my head could get around, I was standing and in the aisle and moving backwards, away from the ghost moving along the ceiling toward me. Transfixed with fear, I backpeddle faster, stumbling as I neared the stage. The people, all still sitting, watched with realized expectation, devoid of response. The ghost, familiar and tremendum, matched and then increased my speed; headed, it seemed, directly for my chest. The coffined stage halted my frantic retreat. In a moment just long enough to realize I wasn't trapped, I changed gears and shot down a side aisle toward a possible escape. Within three steps, I realized I may be over-reacting, that the ghost was my father and his destination was finally the coffin, so my head turned, like that of a jockey's, but found my Father's ghost upon me. I dropped to the floor as though trying to avoid a low flying plane, and my heart jumped ahead of me, fearing its impending death. The ghost swept over me, with the wind of all the world at its heels, and my heart was caught up in the whirlwind. My father halted at the exit, and, without haste, went through the closed door. I got up, and with unbearable fear, began to follow my heart out the door.

As I laid in bed
sweat now coming to me,
and with it the possibility of movement,
I unfolded my hands
and reached out to replace my heart safely inside.
But I could not get a hold of it,
and for three days I walked around
completely afraid of and confused by
what I had no choice but to follow.