The Dream I Don't Remember

I have seen her face in the grass
when the wind blows it silver and green.
Her long hair whips through the salt air,

or was it in a dream, just
before I jolted
awake in my narrow bed?

I see her shadow in the water
when the wind worries it,
and in the grain of wood

washed onto the shore.
I could swear I smell her,
or is it the sea lavender?

Is it the dream I don't remember,
that slips like fingers
across my thoughts

and leaves the taste of salt,
the wild compositions
of birds in my morning?

In the cafés, over their evening
glasses of Marc, the old ones tell
sips, but never a whole story.

I see her when the horses surge,
kick light into spray,
when godwits graze in the marsh.

I would swear that her hair
is the color of the sun,
her eyes the shade of the sea

on a bright morning,
that somewhere she has left
a footprint I could follow.