THE MYSTIC & THE ROSE

     after Dr. Joe Dispenza

I know a man,
or should I say
a mystic, who,

in the space
between sleep
and wakefulness

one night,
a number of years ago,
ran an experiment.

He imagined, in his
mind's eye, a red rose,
just to see if he could.

And he saw it.
It appeared straight
out of nothing.

He explored that rose,
every petal, every leaf,
every thorn, every inch

of its imagined
three-dimensionality
in his mind, until

he memorized it,
until he became it.
The next morning

he was awakened 
before dawn by a wild 
windstorm that threatened

to bring branches
crashing down
on to his ranch-sized

property. He decided
he had to cut those
branches down himself

to keep them from falling
on a ranch hand
or a family member.

So, he ascended into those
very branches by climbing
up a ladder, a very tall ladder,

with a chainsaw.
He began buzzing his way
through those massive

limbs, cutting them
until they fell
one by one

to the ground below.
All of a sudden
down his very long

dirt driveway
a puke-green
Ford van—you know 

the kind I mean—
from the '70s—
whined and sputtered

toward where he was,
until it stopped
—you guessed it—

beneath the tree
he was high up in
and directly under

the very branch
he was right
in the middle

of cutting. 
An older woman
got out of that foul

-colored car
and disappeared
behind the back-end

of it. The man,
or should I say the mystic,
got down from his tree

to see what she was doing
and where she had gone to.
He walked to the rear of

that rancid-colored van
to find her. Her back
was to him as he approached,

but then in one
swift motion she bumped
closed the double doors

with her hip and then
spun around to face him.
In her arms was a glass 

case and inside that case
—you guessed it—
was a single cut rose,

the brightest red
you'd ever seen.
Before he could speak

she opened her crooked
mouth revealing
a broken tooth

and from that mouth
of hers she said: "Don't
ask me any questions!"

and then handed him
the case. The man,
or should I say the mystic,

under the very branches
he had just cut,
stood holding

the very rose
he had imagined
the night before.

In utter amazement
he watched the puke
-green van sputter

and whine back down
that very long driveway
toward the red

of the rising sun
kicking up a cloud
of dust and dirt

as it disappeared into 
the distance, like a lucid dream
into the great unknown.