M Train

by Patti Smith

without a doubt we sometimes eclipse our own dreams with reality.

Not all dreams need to be realized. That was what Fred used to say. We accomplished things that no one would ever know.

Nothing can be truly replicated. Not a love, not a jewel, not a single line.

We want things we cannot have. We seek to reclaim a certain moment, sound, sensation. I want to hear my mother’s voice. I want to see my children as children. Hands small, feet swift. Everything changes. Boy grown, father dead, daughter taller than me, weeping from a bad dream. Please stay forever, I say to the things I know. Don’t go. Don’t grow.

Anxious for some permanency, I guess I needed to be reminded how temporal permanency is.