Living the Dream (2009)

Memorial day weekend
Nine years ago we spent our holiday
Bailing this house out from a flood
Mud and muck wiped out years of treasures
Today, there is no trace of that cataclysm
All is dry and clean except the sky
Which is murky and threatening rain

Still, we hit the pool and play
Though we call it swimming,
We really only bob and splash
And the children have
Their floatees and water-guns
And see me as a human tower
To climb and knock down in their war

Time to dine inside
My brother says grace over the menu of fried everything
Fish, bread, taters, onions, chicken
Themselves fresh from their swimming
In southern grease so good, so good

As I scoop a second bowl of my sister’s famed potato salad
I realize the beauty that surrounds me
In these plain people that I hold so dear
Finding in them that precious irritation
That I would not trade for all the treasures of this world
Or the golden streets of the next

The humblest of pleasures coalesce
Seeing my mother hold her great-granddaughter
Playing cards with my nephews
Telling jokes with my father
Hugging my nieces
Reminiscing and remembering
When this life was just a dream
When we were all so young and accounted for
And when dreams counted for everything, and everything was the dream
Now everything means nothing and this is the dream
And it’s all ours