137. am a dreamtn. man

What is a son but something to dream for?

Corollaries of a forgotten fathoming,
yet the structure of them extends

tracery, erasery, in an orrery of thought

around us, to surround. It is
the gentlest hold on a mind,
even hungry for air or sweetening
into desuetude. Deepening voice
of a son who grows beyond us
yet remains within the shadow
that is the grasp of our arms.
He is

a son
of the first water
and light striking his surface
suffuses his being. He holds
onto it, allows it

to become him

to enter him

to become him

so it does, and even into the north
with sun
held in spires and flowings
of ice. He seems

never to disappear
even if he is not there
because he’s come
out of you like a word

and breaking flowing
drawing his own breath
and letting his own words out
he seems a mirror image

of himself

something to wish for,
such as we might wish him
happiness on a certain day
before the sun sets

into him

and bursts out through
his face, a man
set now for an uncertain future

(for there are no others)

and the pulse of it,
the pulse of him,
the pulse of her
beside him. If you

had never had a son

your dream of a son
would be the son you had

and waking from a hard dream

(corollary of life, the way
an orange arm of coral grows

(multitudes of beasts upon
each other, as every generation
grows upon the last)

and we accept the burden
of abundance)

you find your dreamt son
as a reliable fact,

a son who rises
in the west

a son who may some day
set in the east

but one shining
for now,

one to’ve dreamt of
into being.