Melatonin Dreams of Aging

In dreams, Max swims nearby urging me to drift in the currents of now, letting the future approach at its own rate. I feel at ease floating along, looking upward at a blue sky with white clouds along the river. Here’s Max in 2017, making sure to guide me along.

Melatonin Dream of Aging

A melatonin-helped dream can persist
through three bathroom visits,
after reading a moving memoir on dying.

Images float from mind and core,
from undetected streams in late aging,
as I put aside cleverness to simply watch.

Spiritual guides tell us to haul in loose ropes
tied to past and future,
since now is enough without tomorrows.

This is hard to accept as many old links –
friends, family, works – still delight,
and even tough times make good stories.

Deep below the flow a subtle anxiety
prevails, raising blood pressure,
an embarrassing note of uncontrolled fears.

Learn from cat Max, ever the outlaw,
who lives with his mast cancer
and treats it with a cousin of cannabis.

Max tells me to swim in currents of the moment,
be grateful as a lucky medical coward,
borne along to a final now, here or there.