Entry #54

Trees Don't Dream
by Michael Pelc


In the background the FM Dylan is nasalizing his way through another rhyme, stuffing all kinds of words that shouldn't ought to be there into a sentence, until somehow, at the end, he comes up with just the right ones to tell me that anyone not busy being born is busy dying. And he drags out the last word, dying, to emphasize it, like he's talking to me personally.

So I'm thinking maybe I ought to be writing this stuff down, but she's in the way again, standing at the door to the apartment, fiddling with her purse, trying to adjust the strap so it doesn't slip off her shoulder. A collection of brown paper bags from the Piggly Wiggly are gathered at her feet. She lacks for suitcases, so she's put all her belongings into the grocery bags.

"Because trees don't dream," she says, picking up the bags at her feet and the discussion from an hour ago. As if dreams were a reason for leaving. And then, just like that, she's out the door.

"They don't dream of spring," she continues, her voice muffled now, "and neither do they dream of growing up to be a boat some day. And they certainly don't whisper Gregorian Chants in the moonlight."

I am impressed that she remembers so many of the words to my poem. But mostly I am thankful for the tree that grew up to be the door I helped her close forever.