Last night I had a dream, a big sloppy thing that went on for hours and involved lots of people which my dreams usually don't but it started in Alec Neal's garden, Alec Neal who has a small homestead right outside of town with a stand where he lines up jars of syrup and braided garlic heads and sets them there to stand next to a can and asks via a printed price list for maple syrup and garlic braids and trusts that you will pay him fairly and squarely and I've been eyeing his corn growing strong and tall all early summer long, knee high by the fourth of July and still going strong, full green, light green corn, sweet corn, not sprayed or nothin he says and I see the rows of marigolds growing there in between and overhead is a large plastic owl of a pole, sortofa scarecrow, first year we've done this, he says, does it work? I guess, he says, the corn looks pretty good, don't it? he says from the center of the patch where I can't see him but hear him plucking off the ears, ripping them off the stalks with the sound corn music makes in the middle of the summer being taken from the land, from the grand stand it is on and then he comes out grinning with the 8 in his arms while I give thanks, I have not made such a fair purchase in many a year, 2 dollars for 8 fresh ears and here he is coming at me with them in his arms, light green huskers, no bag or anything just outstretched arms I open up to accept, to make a small contribution, to switch the bucks for ears, and what am I giving him? two dollars, which I can only do by filling the left arm first with the first four and then offering him the 2 bucks with my right hand until he takes it, until he can free me to take the other four and here he is hesitating, he is hesitating isn't he, not taking the money or handing over his ears because these are his babies, baby silver queens, baqbies he's been babying all season and at first he gives me four and holds on to the rest as I am standing there with the four in my left arm and the two dollars still outstretched as he is standing there waiting now, waiting for something to happen with the other 4 ears still left in both his hands, hard working hands, not going for the money but just standing there holding on to them, outside the corn patch, which isn't sprayed or nothin' and is real green and smells of corn that smells real clean and sweet in mid summer, fresh and alive, fresh and green, not wanting the money, not wanting to give up the corn he has babied along all season and yet there is a sign right there along the road that reads "sweet corn" and if that is not a sales pitch what am I doing here offering these 2 measly dollars that he does not want to put back into the corn, back into the patch and leaves it at that and then we are in an elevator in NYC, going up, I and two others in this cranky old elevator that is tiny, one that barely holds two and we are three as the iron gate closes and rises within the shaft holding us tight, we are going up and almost too tight to breathe so I hop atop of my basket full of groceries so that I can fit with these other two who barely know me and when the elevator stops and opens up I have to pop down and out and haul around my basket so the other fellow can get out, I remember him now, he was a good friend to my but he is dead now and then we are all out in some sort of station or wharehouse in NYC with barnlike qualities and further on we are many, a whole lot of us, in some place that is unfamiliar but not alien, a place we are all moving through in the same direction, moving rather calmly for a crowd as if we are all going to a fair or something fun at the other end and there is just the movement of us then, of the tide in us, of moving forward then.