The School of Dreams

Asleep, recalling yet again
a moment on the path that we call life,
and quickly gone—rejection's pain
now too acute to cherish,
still those soft curls are filed away
in memory much too intense
to be forgotten.
But Wisdom speaks to say
a past like this must never be
the prologue to a second vanity.

The only moment is the one before us,
close at hand to touch, explore
and reel at all the priceless possibilities.
This is where repose may win the night,
to take the now and flood it with new light
to give it of ourselves, our old remembering,
our hopes and manufactured dreams,
the love programmed within us;
all the sweetness of a smitten child
is ours again, and now to give away
for this is all we have.

The battle lines within are clear;
the present must regain the day.
Yet through it all, the dream retains
a maddening, persistent vision
of a little cardboard box inside a drawer,
and laid among its cotton fill
is Charlie Brown,
his own creator also still,
while Charlie's slumbers prowl the night
with deathless dreams
of that red-headed girl
inside another box somewhere,
forever out of sight.
~