Emily

Young Tobias walked toward me on the trail,
head down, then up, reading something.
We both stopped and said hello,
so I asked him, “What are you reading?”
He smiled and showed me a notebook,
spiral-bound with printed lines.
“It’s a notebook. I’m trying to memorize a poem.
Emily Dickinson, born December 1930 . . . I mean 1830.”
“Do you write?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I couldn’t place his faintly foreign accent.
We talked about Emily – style, symbolism, depth of discernment,
and what he called mysticism and the importance of dreams.
This is where I started probing and preaching about the insignificance of
nightly visions and what the Bible says about them
and how we need to beware of superstitious reactions to them.
I probably lost him here.

We shook hands.
“My name is Tobias . . . Bless you.”
I gave him my card
and told him to Google Wordydave.

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