Pauline’s Dream Revised

Back in August, 2014, I wrote a poem called Pauline’s Dream. You can read it HERE.

For the Day 5 poetry challenge of Fog/Elegy/Metaphor, I chose to rewrite this poem and the words, but tell the same story. For those of you who are not regular readers, my mom is 95 and suffers from the effects of dementia. When Ben suggested fog as a mental state, this was a natural response.

This is the place of my dreams, but it is not

I do not want to be here, in the fog

I cannot see through the grayish cold mist that clouds my vision

The opaque screen hides clarity

My memories are of mother, father, twelve siblings

And the family home by the tracks

Gathering earth on my shoes as I walk through the garden

Watching mother tend to the beans

Inside, the smell of red grapes emanates in an oakish tint from the basement

The odor of dinner drifts gently

My brothers and sisters claim their favorite places

Are you here, sister Jean?

That is where dreams and reality divide and confuse thoughts

How did I become lost in the cold goose gray?

I want to remember today, but the pea soup makes the spoon stand straight

And I remember only 80 years past

Did you know that my brother pee’d down the snowbank

And my sister sold the house?

I don’t want to be in this haze and forget that I bore Mary

She is daughter, not sister

I want to remember the blue eyes of the skin and bones I called husband

And how long he’s been gone

I want to remember those who visit…Teresa and Paula and Judy

Instead of the atrocities of super glue

But here I am, in the clear murkiness of 15 humans and their home

At times, I don’t remember their names

I ask sister…no, daughter Mary to write them down on paper

So I can confirm their existence as true

I search for my family, in my dreams, and when I wake

I find them

Mother, father, siblings refuse the silent stare of the enveloping fog

And my sister Mary is here

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