SamadhiMuse

This morning, I returned from Starbucks 
and the house was quiet
so I lay down in the bed in the guest room 
and gathered the pillows against me.

I found myself dreaming of my older son, Dan, 
and he was small, perhaps five.

He was standing on a stool 
and we were talking about something together
and, in a moment of my inattention, 
he toppled off and fell on the floor.

I picked him up, scared that he was hurt, 
and stood him on the stool again
and held him 
checking to see if he was OK.

I whispered to him that he was brave 
and that he was my very special son
and how very much I loved him 
and always would.

I told him he was growing up so fast 
and that soon he'd be 17
and grown into a man 
and that this time of ours was so precious
and I hugged him against me.

And then, as so many times before, 
I awoke surprised and saddened
to find myself 
decades into the future.

The smell of his hair, the fineness of his skin, 
the trust in his eyes,
the warmth of holding him 
and the simple and profound love of that moment
were still there, as a warmth, filling me 
though he's grown now and almost 40.

I've had this dream, or something very similar, 
many times about both my boys.
Always the love, the the treasuring 
and then the awaking and the sadness.

I treasure these secret up wellings 
of my heart's past;
these deep emotional memories 
that bind me to these boys - now men.

I would call them and tell them what I dreamt, 
but I fear they'd think me
an emotional old man having a maudlin moment 
in the midst of their busy lives.

So, I'll leave these words here 
in my collection of poetry and thoughts
and, perhaps, someday, they will find them 
and share this moment with me, then.

A moment so very precious 
and present to me now
and yet so very lost and ephemeral 
in the curtains of time.

                                                 gallagher
                                                 22 Apr 08

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —