Dream of the Kitchen Herb Garden

rerun from a year ago

Photo by Jonathan Potter ⓒ 2024

The windstorm yesterday left the sky
a dog's breakfast of frantic clouds
hiding the sunrise this morning.

The dream I woke from before looking
out my bedroom window
was of finding myself alone

in my wife's kitchen with my mother
and my mother-in-law cheerfully
teaming up to cook and clean

and mother-hen me to within inches
of my sanity. Then (in the dream)
an email arrived from yet a third

mothering figure in my life,
my wife's elderly friend Carole, 
with a bit of laundry advice.

In the dream, I jovially shared this email
with my mother and mother-in-law,
and we all had a good laugh about it.

My mother and mother-in-law resumed
their cooking and cleaning and mothering,
and I stepped, cautiously and bare-footedly,

into my wife's kitchen to survey the scene.
Looking down, I saw what I took
to be several small weeds growing

out of the cracks between the floor tiles,
and I bent down to pull one of them,
concerned that the two mothers

would be judging my wife for letting
the kitchen go to seed like that,
when I realized it was intentional.

My wife had planted an herb garden
in the cracks between the tiles
of the kitchen floor.

So I rose from my bed and looked
out the window, checked my morning
message from my beloved in Montreal

(that is to say, the afore-mentioned wife),
reported the dream and got a laughing
emoji and an "omg, it sounds too realistic,"

descended the stairs to the kitchen
(a different kitchen), prepared some coffee,
stepped out into the backyard,

the wind now much calmer
than yesterday, and snapped a photo
of the wildly whirling sky.

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