Breakfast Under the Big Birch by Carl Larsson
there’s a big white oak
my spirit tree
leaning over Highway D
(the Old St Louis Road)
near traintracks
where a locomotive
sat rusting in my youth
I pass it on my way to work
glance up the hill
where my family lived—
Spencer Brydon’s ghost
visage of another self
for a short time in Denver
I stayed with my dad
and fishing alone by lantern
in reeds of an urban lake
I saw through backglass
into a home
venetian blinds part drawn
a girl on a couch
wrapped in a blanket
a momentary picture—
these many years still with me
symbol of comfort
safety, solace, and warmth
years later in a dream
I woke back home
got up off someone’s lawn
walked up Forster Street
houses more elaborate
than in waking life
Halloween – decorated yards
looking up at windows
into glowing warmth—
serenity out of reach
I still drive by my oak
my hill – my tracks
and at night wander streets
float channels—
one evening I dreamt
my dad and brother and I
were on the Current—
it’s in Missouri
as were we
but as we loaded our boat
I could see the Rockies
sun glowing off snowy caps
a rosy orange
(an evening color)
and I told my father
that it reminded me of sunsets
in Lilbourn
where as a child
I’d stayed with his father—
and we boarded the boat
passing big white houses
shady porches
lawns stretching down to the water
and I knew when we finished
we’d go back to a home
just like one of them—
where my mother waited
and we all loved one another
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