I used to write poetry. While finishing the massive filing project, I found some poems I'd saved. This is one I still like. It recounts a dream.


Travels with Belle

We were four, you and I and the two changed men.
We ran uphill, across the long field.

It looked like a parade, a celebration until I saw
the soldier dead, one leg blown off and his chest bloody,
his face death hard open mouth.

We ran, sometimes I ran on all fours to keep up,
the dry grass stiff under my hands.

When the changed man who could not talk touched me,
you warned him off.
You led us, you went on ahead through the theater.
I became lost among the performers,
but the milder beast found me, he told me
where you were, when you were leaving.

At first I swam under the dark water, hidden, but
then I saw the ship move out, the blue stack a clean line
against sky lighter blue,

And my need to be on that ship
lifted me from water into sky. I soared
so far above the scene that the air was dark.
I saw the harbor, the sea, the lights on land, the white rotunda,
and then I dived

To the exact ship, the right place. Past the guard,
the rifle, the railed decks
to find you, to stand beside you.
You were unimpressed.