Savoring the delicious broken pieces of dreams which are reality

Dreams

(In hopes that my 3 children may have a
birthright and not a mess of potage)

I hope my children have their secret dreams,
Extravagant and so naively wild
That shatter wretchedly they must;
But from such dreams, I think,
Distill the dews,
The small successes,
Which refresh life's mornings.

* * * 

Myself - 
A silly, gawky, stick-thin child, -
I had the wide-eyed pillow gall
To see myself as May Queen
At our Westwood School May Festival.
Three years (!) I planned for it.
Most popular sixth grade girl.
By secret written ballot, please!   I prayed.
I pulled that dreamlike taffy
Night by night.  In it I won.
In it I feigned surprise:  I reigned with regal cool;
My short straight hair was ringlets down my back.
Of course, it wasn't me,
But lovely Patty Anderson they crowned,
And photos show my short cropped head
Thrust forward in a line with
The flag I carried in the march behind the queen.
But still I had a thousand reigning days, not one.
And now I am that queen, beloved by all,
When one child casts his ballot:  "Moncherooper,
I love you".

* * * 

Another dream I had
A novelist by age of 10.   "The
Far Distant Oxus," which I read, was written
by two girls.

And so I too could grace the shelves.
I practiced writing pen names
And book-jacket blurbs about myself
And would write poems at midnight
In my bed by filtered street lamps.
Rejection slips lie in a drawer
That has a lot of me in poems
and stories.
But David (12 years) giggled when he read
My mountain tale.
Ho ho - the broken dream bits glittered then.
If no dreams - nothing.

* * *

In third grade
(Mrs. Stone's class -
She was short and almost stout
With hair drawn tightly back into a knot)
We children drew a picture
Of the Eskimos.
I had some vaulting neon northern lights
And busy hunters by their igloos
In the glow.

I dreamt that painting was so real
It came alive.
While it was on display
(How good a painting it most surely was!)
I checked each morning when I came to class
To see if any of my figures had moved at night.
I thought they had!
I knew they had - the painting was so real!
And one bouquet of marigolds I drew
Were such bright orange that I sniffed at them-
They had to smell!
When Ricki did her pastel of our Cull dog,
I hope she thrilled as much.
There is such genius in all children's art.

* * *

Clear dreams I wish my children
Not hazed and shaky ones.
And strength I wish them
To savor the delicious broken 
Pieces of those dreams
Which are reality.