I can still see it:
the scene that draws me in the dream—

the trip down a gentle river that I have known,
        the way into a familiar wilderness;
the editorial meeting where I present the article idea
        with all those talented friends now gone;
the backyard ballpark with lines chalked on concrete
        and the whiffle-ball game in progress;
the seminary in Dayton, archetypal architecture,
        remade in patterns inviting discovery;
the front porch upstairs in summer behind the awnings
        reading the latest Hardy Boys mystery;
the envelope from the stamp dealer
        who trusted a kid with items on approval;
the family store on a cool summer morning
        where the screen door in the back room
        looks out on the green lawn of the church across the way;
our 1965 trip to the Smokies and the Biltmore House,
        a real vacation after all;
the sacristy of Saint Monica’s
        and the challenge to say Mass
        when the book will not yield the text;
the Newhouse School in Syracuse and the classroom          
        in scriptwriting where Joe and I traded ideas;
the streets of Assisi on pilgrimage
         shifting in medieval revelations;
the streets of Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati from up high,
        as I leap from pinnacle to balcony in endless succession
        spanning a vast metropolis–  

so clear,
so real,  

until it all begins to slip away slowly,
a slick thing that you can no longer hold
until at last you see its shadow going
and must decide to rise and
(old guy that you are)
plod to the bathroom.