When I Woke I Was Dreaming: Memories in Poetry and Prose by Bates Wren

Author:Bates, Wren [Bates, Wren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

Perfect Sunday Morning

We lay in bed, your knees tucked up to my belly button,

Your little sighs and twitches as you dreamed kept me from drifting off.

But for once I really didn't care. Just to see your peace as you dozed,

Your brows relaxed and smooth, your eyes barely open,

Your breath escaping through your pink lips,

When you sleep I fall in love with you all over again.

Not that I could ever fall out. You're my own, my flesh, my son.

And every single moment with you is one snatched from the fates,

Snatched from work, school, papers to write, evaluations to put together.

All I wanted this morning as you slept and dreamed in my arms

Was for time to stand still, just for a little bit.

You woke, and we ate breakfast in the backyard under the pecans,

You threw rocks and sticks in the water for Penny to fetch,

And laughed when she kicked drops in her own face and tried to bite them.

We wore pajamas and coats, tripping about the creekside with house shoes on.

I taught you how to build a fire, using nothing but what nature gave and one match.

And you savored the sausages we toasted on sticks,

Giggling as the grease ran down your chin.

Our sleeves served as worthy napkins, and not caring made it all the more fun.

I think you loved our hedonism, the casual breakfast fireside

Sitting on pillows of dry grasses and crackling leaves.

The wind threatened us with falling sticks and rippled water

And your hair danced in the blusters, like prairie grass on rolling hillside.

I sat, tending the flame, watching you climb ten feet over the water on leaning tree trunks,

Knowing your balance would keep you upright.

I know you'll carry that balance into other parts of your life, my darling.

You already have it proven.

My voice wasn't full of warnings or reprimands, no.

It read from Chaucer, and that cheeky Wife of Bath kept us giggling

As her accent and impudence made its way out of my mouth into the cold air.

We giggled as you build little stone towers and imagined they were castles,

We whispered about the fairies who will sleep there tonight when the stars are free.

I know we were both a little sad when we had to return to the world of the mundane,

Where doorways and appliances and schedules block out the possibility of the magic we made.

But this morning existed, it became, it was its own power,

It's alive in you even now as you nap in the next room.

Again the balance you've grown, it shows when you ask me to turn off my computer

And come out with you, under the trees again, where we both can be

Absolutely ourselves, we belong to one another, to no one,

We give and take, ebb and flow with the water, the wind in the branches,

Where I end and you begin becomes blurry, and we can reach into the very earth.

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