In The Eye Of My Mind Poem by Thomas Bates

In the eye of my mind
I see us one day -
The circling of clouds of a less humid
Afternoon or twilight above.
I cannot recall the details of our soft confidences
In this divination of this dream or wish
In a picture
Accurate enough to fashion it
As history, or a reality of
A dream within a dream.

I cannot relate completely
To the joy I felt in my heart
During these meetings.
Seated beside you
After at least a half-decade of years spent apart,
In body or
Spirit;
All of those tears, wanting and waiting.

I know tree limbs hung overhead there,
Where I see us at a wooden
Table, seated and shy and
As intimate as ladybugs trapped in amber.
We're sober, stunned...not quite overcome.
But now,
As the God above would have it,
These memories hurt my heart so that
I must set down my pencil
and let small tears swell like downward rivers as I smile.