The dream returns and you are there again
as if it were not ten years since you died.
We walk ahead, your children follow us.
A stone shifts in the scree and starts to slide.

It’s you and yet it is not you at all,
it’s more like you than some loose composite,
but part of you is someone quite unknown,
your face distorted by the mountain light.

“They seem to like me now that I am dead
and have no power to argue with the living.
Of course I know I lacked the common touch.
I can’t forget, but I’m not unforgiving.”

Familiar compound ghost indeed. You laugh.
“I wrote to change the world and save souls,
but finally life forced me to observe
it’s more the artist art itself consoles.”

“Well I am still much subject to the blues,
not mad enough for this one’s scope and art.”
And you replied, “It’s quality that counts
and vision” – what you call the depth of heart.

“Great pictures can be painted in small rooms?”
“I’m not an angel, never wrote like one.”
“Your work however flawed was inspired.”
“At least I never cribbed and skated on!”

An undertone of sadness in your voice,
you stood there in the light of common day.
I can’t recall the witty thing you said
about your vanities all washed away.