letter

every now and then when I lie awake in bed

I remember how days once used to start:

I would get out of bed and put some music on,

just loud enough so I could hear it, and do pushups to warm me up.

I would put on the same grimy blue clothes, the same pair of soiled boots

and I would open the trailer door to receive the first blow of frosty air.

a rabbit or two would run away, not that you could always see them,

but you would hear the grass stirring, and a rooster crying in the distance.

I would walk up the same path through the icy grass, check the water tanks

and count the days in my head with an imaginary chalk against an imaginary wall.

as soon as I approached the glass door, the dog called Jack would come running

and I would alway get the impression that dogs were much wiser in showing love than we could ever be.

I would cook breakfast and dream about chopping wood in the peak of the mountain

while little drops of rain would start falling from the misty winter sky.

I felt lonely, sure, but somehow life was kind and simple and good.

I would finish up the fried eggs and role myself a nice tobacco cigarette while waiting for the coffee to percolate.

while drinking coffee, I would dream about a nobel prize, a best-selling novel or at least a woman 

to believe I could do any of that; I would dream about not having to do anything but dream.

I would rest the mug on top of the table and reach for a bulky book with a blue cover called 

Dr. Zhivago, and while I touched the pages and the morning faded away in too-tired-of-waiting dreams

I would remember that Pasternak too had won a nobel prize, even though he did not get to receive it.