I’m dreaming.  He appears in our kitchen dressed in a light windbreaker and baseball cap.  My wife sitting on the carpet, facing outside at the french doors, unaware.  My son watching TV in the family room, seeing him.  We’re both surprised.  I’m in the kitchen watching him, asking him how he is.  He’s fine he says, he’s learned how to walk on water.  They’ve put wings on his feet.  And then he’s gone.

My father-in-law Evan passed away in April 2005 after a short bout with failing organs, peacefully, kindly ending increasing struggles with Alzheimer’s.  A proud man who never wanted help reduced to accepting it.

Years later I’ve become something of a writer, having published poetic renditions of my spiritual journey.  I rent a booth at holistic conferences, selling my books and reading them in workshops as guided meditations.  Meeting seekers of many varieties.  I learn about the Pagoda Writers Group which convenes monthly meetings, providing opportunities for generative writing.

So I make the one-hour drive to Reading, winding my way up Mount Penn to the pagoda sitting atop the south end.   An unmarked trail along which I invariably took many wrong turns.  Sitting at the back of the room as I am wont to do, others filter in, two poets leading the discussion, reading poetry, regaling us with stories about ways that the dead contact us.  Dreams, knocks on doors, phone calls, a breeze blowing, apparitions, etc.  Challenging us to write a poem about the dead.  Five minutes.

I write my story, twelve lines, glad handed, casual, words come out of my pen, forming something.  A poem appears.

I volunteer to read, asked to stand, my first appearance, a bit nervous .

The phone rings.  It’s the group leader’s husband’s phone.  He says it can’t be his phone, he’s turned it off.  There’s no one on the other end.

Thanks for coming Evan.  Hope you like it!