I dream a dusty path
where cattle obliterate the grass,
making their routine pilgrimages
past a looming red barn
through weedy green pastures
to a creek’s still waters.

I never lived here,
a generation removed
from where I grew up
playing town-kid games,
seeing fields and pastures
only as a wilderness for imagination.

Fence posts mark a corner
where a barbed-wire crown dangles
half-wrapped back upon itself,
and dense hedge trees with their own barbs
grow lime-green apples
as rough as a farmer’s hands.

Distant from the farm
as from the gardens
that bracket my salvation,
I dream it as a sacred painting
an idealized icon
shining on my path.

I frame that glistening dream
now foreign to my life
and hang it as a blessing
to grace my older days,
like Jesus in the garden
or knocking at the door.