Not A Dream But

This morning I dreamed of my baby child and how delightfully he laughed and played and how that he had been born withered and crippled in both legs and both arms and how that he would never walk or hold but how delightfully he did laugh and play and was carried and held and kissed and loved. And I dreamed how that one of my old friends wondered aloud at how small were his arms and how withered and limp hung his wee legs and we had to name his condition for her and she faded back from him into shadow as though to hold him might touch her. But I dreamed how that his father came home and I dreamed how that my baby child laughed and bounced on him and played with him and melted away the gray dust of his war and his father loved him and would not let go. Then I woke from my dreaming and told it so and my host saw the tear never leave my eye and she told me, "Peace, it was only a dream, not a poem." But it felt it could have been.

pearls