How I came to know everything

In a patch of dying grass
sheltered in the shadow of a pine
I sat, back pressed up against the tree.
And in a bed of its green acupuncture--
under the darkening clouds as they gathered overhead--
I began to know everything,
and I dreamt--

...

of the clinking of china,
and my mother's plastic plates that bore sketches
hand-drawn by my brothers and sisters and I--
I had always been secretly ashamed of mine--

of submersing in black water
at midnight in the summer,
the endlessly long wait and subsequent drone
of the one flickering outdoor light

of thin layers of snow on a worn wooden deck
and the burning comfort of a stove fire--
such excitement for a world that was larger then,
than ever imaginable today--

of broken valuables
arranged neatly on my father's dresser for him to fix,
next to his fabled pile of loose change
and the drawers full of batteries and handkerchiefs

...

It was then that I remembered my own dresser at home--
that same, unmistakable dresser--
drawers stuffed with notebooks and socks
a box containing unfinished tasks on top
a stack of torn books and toys in need of glue
and a pile of loose change.

I saw my own son's hand
clutching a treasured quarter,
placing a disassembled flashlight in the stack.

I saw that excitement
for snow and for ocean in the eyes of my daughter,
and the flash of fear as the thunder shook.

I saw crayon drawings turn magnificent,
and height-notches crawl up the wall,
growing taller with time--

And the world spun in place,
grasses grew,
dust collected
and the strands of twinkling lights
on our porch went out one by one.

...

The rain filled my boots with mud
until I awoke with a shiver
and a numbing agony,
as if something had just left me.

And at that moment I knew everything.