A dream that I had last night

I was writing a poem in my dream.

It was about someone

who no longer has any importance for me.

But in my dream he mattered.

I was thinking how we walked to the sea,

considering holding hands for a moment

but deciding it wouldn't be appropriate.

I was avoiding to mention him explicitly,

instead I was looking for metaphors

best to describe that afternoon in the city,

during the hot, humid summer of 99

when I found myself in love and heartbroken.

As dreams go, I was at home, thinking, writing,

but at the same time I was on that seaside, too.

Walking next to him, in silence,

smelling the salt from the harbor,

trying to ignore the cries of the seagulls.

And also, I was watching myself write,

commenting on how easy the words flow

if one is writing about something so clear

so important, so real,

without even suspecting

that all this was nothing but a trick of my mind.

The moment I realized it was a dream,

(the moment I found myself awake)

I grabbed something to write on.

But the poem, which I knew was one of my best,

maybe even the best one of all,

was already lost, hurrying to that hidden place

where fragments of past dreams

not meant to be remembered go.

I wanted to recreate it, reshape those words.

I desperately reached for those memories

I knew they were once strong enough

to provoke many of my sincerest poems.

Then disappointed I realized

how faint they were now.

Not forgotten but just kept there

like a place holder, marking the lack of all the things

I would experience in the years to come.

Well, even with the poem lost and the inspiration gone,

It was still a dream worth writing about.