Tulips

Tulips, tulips!
Why had you withered so early?
Was it the weather?
Or was it because you were foretelling my destiny?
I could only imagine you were once beautiful.
I could only imagine your flowers once spread every corner of the fields.

But I did experience that, didn't I?
Was my mind playing tricks on me?
What seemed real turned out to be just fabric of my imagination?

The icy cold Lake Michigan water did not wake me from my sweet dream.
May the dream continue...
But NO...
It wasn't a dream.
The sand dunes, the pine and cottonwood trees, even the icy cold water could testify
that I wasn't dreaming and that what I experienced was real.

What could I make out of all these?
An invisible wall had barricaded the way forward.
But I could not turn back either
for the tide was high and the water was cold.

I climbed to the top of the dune,
overlooking the far horizon
where water meets the sky.
Sun was setting.
Time did not wait on me, ticking away mercilessly...
I wished I could see farther ahead.
Yet where the sun rested was the limit of my vision.

[to be continued!?]