©LF Haynie, July 2, 2016
Grief for a dream
A dream of what might have been
And what could have been
But what will never be.
Is grief the same,
Almost as if
A loved one had died.
****
At first I cannot believe the dream is gone,
Awakened rudely by life itself
And then finally when I cannot pretend to sleep
To keep the dream in my heart alive--
Denying that I am awake, that I have lost it forever--
I am angry--
So angry!
I cannot BELIEVE that I cannot have that dream!
It’s so small a dream! A mere hope,
A wisp of thought that ANYONE should be allowed to have.
But no.
God, can I not have it? I will be good,
I promise you I will.
I will take care of that dream and tend it carefully,
Feed it and give it water and walks and
Lots of love and attention
You’ll give it to me, right? I know You will.
You love me, and you want all things that are good for me, and this is good for me, yes?
But no.
It’s not to be.
I do not know why.
Hard to believe,
But it is true,
I’ve lost the dream forever--
At least until heaven.
Where all dead dreams go to wait for us.
***
As long as I grieve that dream,
I will not live
The life I have,
Not fully,
As long as I am engaged in grieving
The dream that will not be.
Yet grieve I will,
Until grief has run its course
And I come back to life again
Looking at what is,
And not at what is not.
Grief will run its course,
A flood at first,
With crashing waves the tide comes in--
The tide is high and hard to navigate.
But eventually, the tide will turn.
And little by little, the floodwaters recede
Until at last a small stream is left
And through and through life it runs
The momentary thought
Of what might have been,
What could have been,
What should have been--
A momentary sadness,
Gone soon and chased out
By the reality of the joy of what is--
For we will be joyful, fearful though it seems at first.
We will laugh again, though it seems impossible now.
We will throw ourselves into life again--
As long as we do not let the loss of the dream
weigh us down and anchor us to a cloud.
But should we not dream at all then?
Look at what is,
And live with what is,
But dream your dreams,
For what is life without dreams?