Egret's Flight

You start with dreams and end up giving them away. The boat, the trolling motor, the ’59 Ford, the MG, the orchard ladder, the pick and shovel, the house and trailer. And they cost thousands. Thousands and thousands and you let them go. Give them away to friends, family, strangers, the free bin, Goodwill, the Bank. And more stuff arrives to take their place. Books, art, a bike, shirts hardly worn, a vase, programs with your name in them. Things pass through that don’t belong to you—parades, an egret flying toward you like an arrow, poems by poets you’ve never heard of, a curator’s smile. Dreams that last a moment, an afternoon, a night; dreams that linger and evaporate, that buoy you, that strike you down, that last until the end of a page, until the end of the earth, until you write them down, until the cat licks your nose, until you close the book. And this too, you give away. ~ Guy Biederman, MacQueen’s Quinterly, issue #10, October 2021