Does He Still Dream
his body survives
dependent
for every beat and breath
on the machines
that surround him
and his conscious mind
is blank
but what of dreams
we never forget our dreams
it's said
from the very earliest
sloshing in the universe
of our mother's belly
to the very last
as we die
riffling
one last time,
through the book of dreams
we made page by page
over our lifetime
so, if this derelict can dream
if this scrap of man
who used to laugh and love, this
shrunken giant who would carry me
enfold me in his arms, hold me close
in the worst of storms, this declining
remnant of a son and lover who
slept at the breast of both
his mother and mine
this fallen hero leaving the world
as he entered it, drawn together
head reaching for his knees,
this frail ghost of my father
if he has yet
the final gift of dreams
if in some part of his mind
we can neither see nor measure,
he still drifts through dreams fading
like the shadows of a fire growing colder...