Idreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
I met my past and could not recognize
a single word I heard this phantom say,
and wondered was he wearing a disguise,
an actor, maybe, in a masque or play,
with gaze as glazed as in a dead men’s eyes?
I hastened from the spot from which he’d come,
and now the thought of him leaves me so numb
that only if you understand what I
have dreamt may I be able to return
to where I was before I passed him by,
attempting, by evading him, to spurn
the past I could not recognize. I’ll try
to see him as the famous Grecian urn,
and, foster-child of silence and slow time,
recover reason sweetly with a rhyme.

gershon hepner

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-dreamed-2/