The river of dreams engulfed me and in its current my memories of Europe assembled piece by piece. With a rush of wind that was adrenalin, I was in the body of a young man once again.

I approached a cafe table where a petite young woman of my apparent age was having a continental breakfast. We were both dressed quite formally in clothing that enhanced our youthful vitality, but could as easily fed an idealized fantasy of the other should we decide to merely ride the current of this dream. This realization told me that my heart was still the middle aged man that lay sleeping somewhere, and that knowledge imposed itself enough to try to check the impulses of the young man I appeared to be.

The young woman was someone I vaguely remembered from my middle aged man's past. When I saw that her face lit up to see me, a young man's desire stirred in me as I sought to engage her in conversation. She was new to Europe and as in many dreams, the details of her being there were not explained and she seemed to not need a reason for me to have encountered her.

The current of dream bid us part after a pleasant interlude.

The slow current brought me around again on another day at the cafe where we shared another meal. Her story of a child she loved dearly and somehow lost, brought the sense of an infant in my arms and the brush of a silky smooth baby cheek against mine. Instantly I held the young woman instead. My arms were warm around her slim form with the curls of her brown hair tickling my cheek. My middle aged heart fought my young man's ardor, but when my blue eyes met her brown ones, I was lost.

I almost babbled of places I could show her around Europe and all we could share if she just let me take her away. She seemed taken with my proposal, but then my middle aged heart clenched. My sleeping form lay next to a wife of more than twenty years who I owed everything and dearly loved! In my dream, my young self bitterly protested.

My true self would not tolerate this any longer. I lay warm in my bed with my eyes remaining closed and the warmth of my wife next to me breathing deeply and evenly.

This is the life where I belong. Why did I go to such a place and situation in my dream? My heart berated me. I knew this waking life was set in motion for me by the Creator. I really didn't want any other.

I found that I could trust the life I have been given because I am in relationship with the Life Giver. Leaving control in His hands actually strengthens our relationship.

I thought my music would cause me to be remembered after I was gone.
I thought my influence would live on in this way, but time forgets as it moves on.
I need my brothers and my brothers need me, and only together will there be a difference to see.
We sing one today, but tomorrow's a new song.
We keep looking up because we're already gone.

No war vet claims to be a hero. It is the honored dead who are heroes.

Back From The Edge

I watched Fern’s toes wiggle lazily as we sat under a shady willow that in combination with the breeze off of the river cooled our sweat-beaded brows. The languid branches acted as a curtain forming a natural tent for our relaxation.

Just visible out in the sun bobbed a red winged blackbird. In a blur of feathers that was becoming a common occurrence for me, the bird became a young woman with her blue-black hair streaked with two lines of yellow and red. She pushed through the branches and looked at me with unfocused eyes.

“You must go home now and bring him to me here,” stated the girl flatly and mysteriously.

“Bring who to you?” I frowned.

“Her boyfriend,” replied Fern when I looked at her for help.

Her boyfriend...? “Oh! You must be Tom's girl.”

“I had to come home. Here. He wouldn't come with me,” the bird girl tried to explain.

“I can bring him here? I don't even know how to get back,” I looked at Fern. “Which is something I've been meaning to ask you since we arrived here this afternoon.”

“I will show you,” said Fern.

“I must go now!” interjected the blackbird girl just before she changed back and flew away.

“Come,” beckoned Fern as she pulled on my arm. We walked across the stretch of grass back toward the sheer cliff of the bluff where we had first appeared near its unassailable surface.

“We don't try to climb and then jump the way we got here, do we?” I wasn't sure I could do that again, especially when Fern had to force me over the first time.

“No, no,” she said and pointed to an indiscernible spot on the cliffside, “we walk straight in here.”

We were standing about ten feet away, so I slowly held my hands out in front of me and walked toward the place she seemed to be pointing. Before I could get near enough to touch the rock, my hands blurred to almost invisibility.

“You can close your eyes if you want to,” prompted Fern.

“Let's just go,” I said.

We walked forward together into dizziness and a wind that pulled me up into a nauseated disorientation. I opened my eyes when I felt like we had arrived back and saw that we had in fact returned to Minnehaha Park. Fern was lying next to me in some grass well away from the park's cliff edge where we had entered Fern's world earlier.

Fern sat up and said, “You go get the boyfriend. I'll wait for you over there.” She pointed to the edge of the cliff. I nodded that I understood.

As I made my way to Tom's house, I wondered why I was going along with this idea of bringing Tom over into that other world I had only just discovered myself today. If anyone would believe me, it would be Tom. After all, his girlfriend is a red winged blackbird. How insane is this? How insane am I?

Thomas Mayfield answered his door on the third knock. He just stood in the doorway and looked at me blankly.

“I have a message from your girlfriend. I think you said her name was Jenny?” I was surprised her name even occurred to me.

Tom ushered me into his living room. “How have you heard from her?”

“She bobbed up to me and changed right before my eyes and told me to bring you to her.”

“That is strange. If anything, I’d expect her to come to me herself.”

I told him about Fern taking me to her home in another world, and that was where Jenny was. “I’m suppose to bring you to her there. Fern insisted I do so.”

“Look,” said Tom, “Jenny told me she had to go home for a while. I thought maybe she was trying to find a way to break up with me. I mean, how can someone humdrum like me last with someone magical? I thought that was it.”

“Tom, I don’t know the hows or whys. I am only doing this because Fern thinks I should. It sounds like Jenny still wants you. At least, I think so.”

“Is there some kind of time difference? I mean, what day do you think this is? How do you know you weren’t gone longer than you think?”

I was beginning to think he was making excuses. “It’s Sunday, right? The twenty-eighth? Just come with me and see.”

---

At the edge of the cliff, I held a tree branch out over the edge. The end was blurred into invisibility. “Now you do it and see it’s no trick.”

I handed him the branch and he gingerly extended it over the edge.

”You’re going to hate me for this,” I thought as I gave him a push…

There's so much I would share with you
From experience, memory and dream

The soothing breeze on a summer's evening
The elation of catching the smile of a new-found love
To know you loved as true as your grief is deep
The dreams that came true were from the deepest part of you
And pleasure and pain are part of the same blessing

Bohemian Avenue #14

I stood ankle deep in Minnehaha Creek along a sandy portion of the bank watching my sparrow girl splash water over herself. She had been delighted to be named Fern at my suggestion. I'm not sure why, but Fern seemed to occur to me automatically.

We had been walking the creek for at least an hour together. She would revert back to bird form once in a while to settle briefly in a tree or to poke around in some grass. At other moments she would gingerly take my hand and walk with me in her girl's form. Though neither of these changes seemed to last long, I thought perhaps she wanted to feel close to me. I confess I have become quite fond of her since our first meeting.

I heard her singing again this morning through the open windows. She doesn't visit me every day, but quite often, and hearing her this morning drew me to invite her to visit Minnehaha Falls and walk the creek to where it emptied into the Mississippi River. She smiled and told me she knew the place and said a little cryptically, “I'll show it to you, too.” I chalked up what she said as one of her cute little ways that made me smile, but I was in for a surprise!

As we walked toward where the creek emptied into the river, there were ledges of sandstone. Many people had carved their names and other words and images into the rock faces. At a point where the cliff seemed about forty feet up from the creek bank, there were wooden stairs to take you up into a more landscaped part of the park and within view of a Minneapolis residential area. It was here that Fern flew half way up the stairs and turned to urge me to follow.

At the top of the stairs, I found her standing at the edge of the cliff near the stairs. She held her hand over the expanse, turned to me and said, “Here is the way to another place--my home. Jump and come with me.”

“What? You know I can't fly.” I was standing next to her feeling my stomach clench as I considered the height.

Fern smiled and took my hand turning me away from the view. “Not fly, jump!”

“I could die jumping from here!” I suspected all my experiences with Fern had become a delusion and I was going to prove it by jumping to my death as soon as my delusion convinced what was left of my sanity.

She took several strides back from me “You won't die. Catch me!”

Before I realized, she had jumped into my arms. She was not heavy, but her momentum had pushed me back. I knew I was falling, but I couldn't believe how fast. It was taking too long and felt like the suspended rush of coming down the initial descent of a roller coaster. “I'll wake up in Heaven,” I thought, “if I don't crush this little girl in my arms from sheer terror…”

The minute I first saw you
Your smile, your eyes
Your inner light like a sunrise
You brought me to life
I had things to show you
I wanted to get to know you
Only to let me fall
A picture could tell
After years, how hard I fell

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