Elements of Daydreams

The buds, the keys, the leaves
those leaves, the colours, bare trees …

Can’t be wistful about money.
Wistful’s got    you know    wist.

Plenty other things to go wistful on.
Take that G— works the desk

make you wistful. Faraway
train in the night make you.

Sun hits your neck when you have some
free time turn you wistful.

Shadow of a low plane arcing through
Eglinton Park. Trysts that you keep

on a map in your brain, places you save
in your savoury memory. Mansions

you fashion from stars from the sky
you can reach them from bed through September

night air. Open windows, all the rooms
in the world, I guess space can make you wistful.

Botany in time in season after season
in scrutiny fields of dandelion fluff

it’s a fact: sniffing can also make
you wistful.

 

The tender of wistful
is daydreams.

Of dreams in the night
the tender is metaphor.

 

All this is precious little to do with money.
Wistful consists of space and free time: on occasion

it’s misspelt as “wasteful.” Some folks just plain
don’t get it. Some do. Some point

they take the time to pause
to stop resisting wistful.

— CHRIS CHAMBERS

(Originally published Christmas, 1998.)