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MY IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

I believe a man can fly, for I've seen it done.
The moon did yield, Everest has bowed.
Not the sea nor the desert challenges Man.
A cartoon is everyone who can die a hundred

deaths and never die:
Life is that man's comedy.
A cartoon touched the moon and a cartoon

freed the American Negro.
Only a shadow of reality could succeed
When the masses dictate: "It's not possible

for any man to do."
If you believe you can't, you're right.
If you believe I can't, you're wrong.
Write your own epitaph ...
Only God will write mine, thank you.
When the world shouts a collective "No!",

and even I don't quite believe me,
I'll become a child and make a Noah

from the debris that before was
A "defeated man."
That impossible comeback victory over

myself will make me smirk, because
I've won when I should have lost.
I dreamed I was a cartoon . . .
And I was.
I believe a man can leap enormous
obstacles because I've seen it done -
Lincoln, Armstrong, Caesar - They're my examples.
But I've never witnessed anyone conquer
Pain forever, so I'm not certain
I can.
A parent has died, a house has burned to the
ground, the setting sun announces the end
of a weekend.
I can't be a cartoon always.
Pain makes average men of us all.
I dreamed that pain would never return.
But it did.

Nelson Thacker

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