The dreams of lions who fight

The dream is like the one I have, where I wake up and see the yard covered in snow.
It should be beautiful!
But-

fuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkk
I've turned on the water in the underground sprinklers too early.
The earth is frozen. 
The pipes we filled could now be burst.
I won't know for some time what the damage is.
My stomach is filled with dread.
This is my home. 

I don't know how much is broken.
I don't know how much is broken.

Maybe nothing?

I don't know what can be fixed.

Maybe nothing.

This is how I dream of the boy.

***

"This isn't nirvana," a colleague says.
I await wordlessly her continuation, given the view we are both beholding. "I had a bike stolen once." In her twenty years of residence. 

I nod. "Olympus, then?" I offer.

But really, I think of Ireland.
Or the Hobbits.

Still, she understands immediately. 

 ***

Usually, though-
I am alone.

I tell myself, this is courage.

But it is possible to say many things to oneself
Unchecked
In isolation.

I can tell when I am lying to myself.
I cannot always tell when I am not.

***

I alternate declarations to a judge rooted in Cyprus.

With bold and uncompromising prayers
for a restitution
years late

and silence among my colleagues.
I tell them nothing
I tell you nothing
I hold my breath too long to speak.

I am not convinced
I am strong enough to wait
For the indecipherable idiosyncrasies of divine retribution.

So,
I also ask
more humbly,
if my prayers are holy.

Even though,
I know,
Whatever the answer.
I am sure I would pay the price.
Eagerly.

More than one of us will pay.
Eagerly. 
I am even surer of that. 

But who knows how much?
Or who the bill collector will be.

***

Dueling Leo's is apt enough.

Though I know who is older.
Born first.

If you believe there is no dictation from the stars, surely, at least, there is predisposition-
We can all hold tightly to the theory of epigenetics.

Whatever your ontology
These mountains have begun to affect me.
Who would be foolish enough to argue otherwise.

And, Perhaps, I have begun again,
quite accidentally in this solitude,
to know
how iron runs through veins.

It has been a long time since I have known
That despite my dogged pacifism?
I wouldn't want to go up against me in a fight.

Not because of my ferocity
Ordinary and easily-matched
by Master Gardeners at least
But because, after all of this time

I have known Peace.