dream

Dr. Sexson, looking like the Wizard, is telling me something important, but he is fading and I can't quite hear ... "pay more attention to..." I turn over and go back to sleep to try and hear the rest. I'm in the Beartooths with my father. We're grazing like bears on the huckleberries, stopping to listen for real bears, then clambering down to a small stream for a drink. He shows me the horsetails ! and how to use them to shave oboe reeds. He shows me the mayfly casings on the stone cliffs and tells me the story of their short lives.

I wake and weep. He's been gone ten years. I remember his anger at my grandfather, my husband. I remember my mother's fury when I got lost in a book or at the piano. I remember reading in the green chair near the window and his gentle hand on my head as he passed by.