Old Lovers / Painting Dream / Drawing Dream

In 2000, I wrote this poem:

PAINTING DREAM

No one can paint this desire.

No one can paint this forgiveness.

Her hand drawing his.

His hand drawing hers.

They carry silence between them

as if it were a newborn child.

In my dream we were an old man and an old woman

walking by the ocean.

Who painted this desire?

Who painted this forgiveness?

"Painting from Memory of the Future / Evolution of Forgiveness" (painted in gouache and watercolor by am sometime in 2006):

Last night I dreamed that a young woman, using a 6B pencil, had done a series of beautiful drawings of people on 18 x 24 inch drawing paper and had carried them into a cafe and set them down in a pile on a table so that they could be seen. They looked like drawings I did in the early 1980s.  I asked her if I could photograph them.  She consented.  I took her drawings outside where there was more light.  I placed the first drawing on the sidewalk, being careful not to damage the drawing in any way.  

When I tried to photograph the drawing, there were problems.  The first obstacle was my shadow blocking the light on the drawing, but I changed positions and resolved that issue.  Then I couldn't seem to get the whole drawing into the camera's viewer.  While I was trying to address that difficulty, I noticed that there were bystanders' reflections mysteriously superimposed over the people in the drawing, creating a pleasing meaningful effect on the image of a large family or of a group of friends.  Passersby were gathering around me to see what I was doing.  As I looked at my camera's viewer, the drawing became more and more detailed, almost photographic.  I continued to try to photograph it but found that to be impossible.  Somehow, this failure turned out to be a positive experience.  

When I woke up, I was grateful to have seen the drawings.

Something is shifting in my psyche, healing lifelong grief and giving me choices I didn't know I had.  This is no easy process, but I welcome it.