The Dream Catcher Restaurant - Patricia LeBon Herb

[Larry Robinson]


The Dream Catcher Restaurant 

Sault Ste Marie, Michigan 





An Elder woman seated across the aisle from us

Having brunch with a girlfriend

Her jacket is draped over a chair



On her jacket are a moose, deer

An eagle flies overhead. On a clear blue lake cries the loon

I am back in the North Lakes, wood region



I hear a faint background of seventies music :

Bob Dylan, Maria Muldaur, Gordon Lightfoot

Mellisa Manchester, Johnny Cash



Our waitress keeps pouring refills while

My husband is making travel arrangements

On his smart phone



Her jacket calms my racing mind



I think back to waking up an early morning

At our family cabin in Northern Minnesota

Sitting at the dock with a cup of hot chocolate



Reading second-hand, ear-marked, paper backs

While listening to the loons, in the far off distance

After a morning dip



I was a late teen and care-fee then. A dreamer

I'd wonder often about that big world out there of

Infinite possibilities



Will I go to college? What will I study?

Where will I live? Will I get married and have children?

Will I be a drifter?



The road of my childhood was never a straight line

My studies and variety of jobs took me far from the lake

To distant places of no return



I was brave and foolish then, it is a small miracle

I am not dead. I play it safe now

And worry more than I should



What happened to that care-free teen at the lake?



The woman across the aisle

Stood up and put her jacket on

The jacket with the moose, deer, eagle and loon



At the lake

She turned around and gave me a curious smile

And walked away.

	- Patricia LeBon Herb