As a boy, it didn’t take much to set me off on a wild, imaginative journey where I was the conductor, and the trip was always free. The following poem, “We Are All Like Grass”, depicts a brief look into one of those journeys. Being an only child, I had no siblings to contest with and, therefore, no one to inhibit the flights of fancy to which I was prone. St. Peter tells us: “ For all flesh is as grass; and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass is withered, and the flower thereof is fallen away” (1 Pet. 1:24). Using that as a base, I envisioned my detour into daydraming as one that was also shot through with finitude, though my childish heart wanted each and every detour to last forever. But it was not to be so. However, there was, and is, joy in every journey, and those “trips” have not ceased, though they are bounded by a more seasoned mind (sometimes). I added an Icarean touch, also, arising from my adult tendency to ground myself, as if to dream has eventual failure written all over it, but that is my daily struggle. I believe we touch eternity when we dream, and we become closer to God; at least potentially so. Welcome fellow dreamers!

The towheaded humanoid mounted up

with primeval wings of Icarean

imagination, stretched out over

the masses of the dead who trolled

listlessly amongst the fields of 

asphodels, like Homeric heroes on

a haunted holiday.

The heavens reflected his glory,

his own private cinema, this

theater of exalted consciousness.

He was in love with the clouds which

were heaped up like spoonfuls of

buttery mashed potatoes, limping across

the vaulted sky.

As an amulet for his finger, he

wore a June Bug. Its spidery legs

clutched him for his comfort,

consoling his emergent conscience

with its insectoid goodness. The

blue green sheen of its carapace,

oily in its essence, felt sensuous

beneath his touch, akin to

holiness.

Like a stubborn aspic viper, innocence

comforted his humanoid mind,

now aerial in its expansiveness.

With infinite peace, he soon fell

to earth, leaving mortality

behind.