Nels Hanson’s most recent poem to appear here was “Escape” (March 2018).
The Dream
By Nels Hanson
Several times when watching clouds,
twice terrified, I saw one puff of white
assume clear face, archaic as God’s or
Michelangelo’s, then another, another,
partially, perhaps to form a final face,
now starkest truth to be revealed before
vapor separates, dissolves in fractured
gray and you decide the sky meant to
speak the pure message you’ve just
missed and lost forever. Is that the way
when waking from the dream you have
where you know everything, the puzzle
no puzzle and for a minute or two all
fits so right even chance makes perfect
sense we keep expecting, waiting for?