Last night my dream was clear.
I saw up close a long-lost friend.
It was as if he was here.
The face, voice, dear deceased memories to tend.
Sometimes my father, mother, and brother long lost return in a dream.
Why is it only in dreams can I see them focused as in life, though now in afterlife?
Is it some deep subconscious stimulus that ensures how real they seem?
Or are they really here freed from mortal strife?
Awake now these lost ones dream-like appear.
I cannot paint them even if I had the skill.
But now in my dream my friend really is walking beside me, only to disappear.
He takes another road and is lost, I know not what until.
Do the dead walk only in dreams of the mind.
Or are they calling us from another country, for one brief real moment to us vined.