Dream | pictured words

Walking up my street,
I see a man walking toward me.
Aww. Looks like Grandpa, I think,
knowing it couldn’t be.
As we get closer, there is no mistaking.
Yes, it is Grandpa.
I don’t want to wake up, and miss out.
He approaches me.
“Grandpa!”
He gives me a hug.
As is nearly always the case when I dream
of the dead, all senses are engaged.

“Grandpa, what are you doing here?”
He says he came to tell me not to worry about
circumstances that were consuming me.
Everything would be just fine.

Then he says, “You know I can’t stay.”
Yes, of course.
I just don’t want to lose him again
so quickly.

“But I will come back,” he assures.
He hugs me again, and,
just that quick,
he’s gone.

My long, detailed dream continues.
It seems to last a good portion of the night.

Suddenly, there he is again.
This time, he doesn’t speak.
His silence stills me,
while it declares a grand reassurance.

I wake from the dream,
recognizing it hadn’t been merely a dream.

And I smile.
When he said he would return,
I hadn’t realized he meant
that quickly.
That night.
That dream.

January 9, 2022

FIRST, DO NO HARM

I’m itchin’ to upgrade, and pitchin’ a fit.
For now, I’m afraid, I have zilch to submit.
While someone is flippin’ through pages of verse,
I want my name there before I’m in a hearse.
It’s paltry and petty, this dream I’ve unfurled. 
But?
Improvin’ at versin’ can’t worsen the world.

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

October 6, 2019

A HOLY HUSH

Photo by Keith R. Good

Sleep came,
but the dreams that accompanied it
were disturbing
and all I could do was pray for peace
as worry for her threatened to devour me.
Disquiet was my life for months

and months

and months.

Then one night I found myself
walking a path of undisturbed snow.
The moon was my only light –
just enough to illumine the path,
glisten against the falling snowflakes,
and reveal the immense evergreen forest.
There was silence,
save the calming crunch
of snow beneath my feet.
I walked the breathtaking beauty all night,
accompanied by One who knows me intimately –

the only One who offers stillness
in the midst of turbulence.

“… and he said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” ~ Mark 4:39

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November 23, 2018

Dream the Love, and Love the Dream (A Wrapped Refrain)

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Photo by Keith R. Good

When poets sigh, they sigh for love –
In awe of fragrant fruit thereof.
To spill the heart from breast to page
Release it from its living cage –
Free fragrant ache to fill the soul, and reach the sky,
And my-oh-my, breathe in love’s scent, when poets sigh.

And how I dream our words would fill
Our world with peace. With love. Goodwill.
And I believe that words can heal
And so I’ll write, and speak. Appeal
To peacemakers whose soothing words are as a stream
In moonlit gleam. It’s how I pray, and how I dream.

When poets write, they seek within
To find the space where dreams begin
Where love writes sighs, and peace prevails
Where words can heal, and goodwill sails
To span the breadth of all that’s true, and there alight.
We’ll dream the love, and love the dream, when poets write.

April 7, 2018

PUNK

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I sat at the left end of a long
cafeteria-like table.
No food before me,
no scent of food.
My eyes focused on something
in my hands, which
I cannot now recall.

Forward and to my right,
old fashioned, quilt-look, diner-style
double swinging doors
open.
I glance up
smile
glance back down,
before my heart quickens in my chest
and I look back up.

“Punk!” barely escapes my lips –
more air than voice
as our eyes engage –
His,
smiling, crinkling at the sides.
Mine,
misting as my lips quiver.

He comes to me,
his cadence the same as my heart
remembers.

“Punk!” barely escapes again
as we hug.
His scent and chuckle,
unchanged.
His breath moves my hair.

His familiar voice in my ear speaks only a few words:

“What do you want to know?”

An unexpected question.
My heart quickens again.
What do I need to know?

“Punk, I just want one more hug.”

He backs up
just enough for me to feel his warm hands
on my cheeks.
I can see only his smiling eyes.
I look into them, and see
everything.

It can’t be explained any other way.

Everything.

In less than a moment.
Everything that ever was
seen
felt
heard
known
unknown,
is now
ever will be.

The beauty of it all filled me full.
Left me no words.

He gave me one last hug,
walked to the double doors,
glanced back with those smiling eyes,
and walked back through.

And the living live the here and now,
but those who have passed
and are alive in Christ,
know.

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December 15, 2016

LONGING

longing

I long for a world
Not riddled with sin
Where the earth is kind,
And the people therein.

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June 16, 2016

IN PERIL

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This shining city on a hill
Has but a flicker of goodwill.
Our homeland’s in profound unrest;
Precarious as a young stork’s nest.
No longer held in high esteem …

Yet pray’ers pray, and dreamers dream.

Our brethren’s blood runs through our streets.
Unwelcome history repeats.
We’ve chosen shady and debased
To fill an office that’s disgraced
While haters hate, and schemers scheme.

Still pray’ers pray, and dreamers dream.

But God grants vision to the blind,
Redeems the lost; restores mankind.
His faithfulness is unsurpassed,
As through it all, His love holds fast.
My hopefulness remains agleam …

While pray’ers pray, and dreamers dream.

2 Comments