I was looking for a poem.  I kept thinking I'd probably find it in a box buried in the depths of my closet.  I had approach avoidance.  Part of me wanted to open the box, but another part of me didn't.  The box held journals from my adolescence, college term papers I'd written--and my collection of poems I'd composed over the years. The poems were what I really wanted to uncover.  I was looking for one in particular; the piece had been published in a literary magazine, Forthcoming, at my university.  I'd other poems published before that one, but they were morose.  Those were the ones I wanted to avoid. They were written at a time in my life when I thought I'd never recover from grief.  I suppose they were published, because other people could relate to the despair of life gone wrong--life gone sad. But I really wanted to find that one poem. I could remember being especially pleased with the imagery in it, but more I wanted to read and capture again that decision I'd made to choose life, to keep going after Giovanni and I had broken apart. That poem seemed to mirror the feeling of hope I was looking for. I wanted to use the piece in the new book.

At four a.m. I awakened, the box still on my mind.  "Just open it, Priscilla, for God's sake." I grabbed a footstool and eyed the box on the top shelf.  I wrestled with shoe boxes stacked on top of it and finally dragged the box down.  The carton was heavy, weighted with paper, weighted with memories.  I unfolded the corners on the box top and nostalgia surfaced.  I saw again the old college folders, the spiral bound notebooks, my handwriting unchanged.  Seeing handwriting often startles; it's distinct.  When you see the curves and loops of the letters, it's instant recognition.  I grabbed the blue notebook first.  There was doodling on the cover, along with the seventies pricetag--49 cents.  I wrote with red ink.

Sure enough, recorded on the slightly yellowed paper was a journal from 1973 when Giovanni and I had been together for the first time in our history.  On December 3, 1973, I'd written:  "Diary, you'll never believe the dream I had last night.  I dreamed Giovanni and I got married.  We were in a midst of a crowd, and we found an older man to marry us."  I'd absolutely forgotten the dream.  I thought about the date I'd written the diary entry.  We were married in 2004--approximately thirty one years in between the dream and the reality.  

I did find the poems--in a white folder with only the word "Yes" printed on it.  That "Yes" seemed to represent my response to God when in 1974 I lost contact with Giovanni.  I said "Yes" to life; I would not stay in the dark recesses of my sorrow that much of my poetry reflected.  I did find the poem I searched for, but it is not the poem I needed to find.  I discovered another poem I'd forgotton, like the hidden dream. I wrote the poem all in lower case (I've always been a fan of e.e. cummings). I don't know when I wrote the piece, but my words remain unfaded.  Timeless.

the prayer

hurry to my side

and comfort me in times of barren loneliness

cast upon me your golden understanding

and make all my tomorrows worth their wake

be with me and ease my life sting

select my waltz

and conquer all the seasons of my life.