This is just bizarre.  I was to begin some work on a weekend home improvement job yesterday morning at 9.  Yep, I’m a bit handy and can put a house up, tear one down—whatever you got.  Anyway, when I arrived at Dave’s, the customer’s house, there appeared to be no one around.  So I just parked my car in the driveway and moseyed about to check the premises out.  You know, I figured that maybe the guy was in the back yard.  Not there.  No cars in the garage either (but two canoes-so he probably didn't go fishing!).  So I figured he decided just to blow me off—or maybe there had been an emergency to call him away.   But since it was a fine autumn morning, and I had a half cup of coffee still hot, and I had my laptop with me (everywhere!), I decided to take a seat in my truck and wait a bit…and scribble a few lines.  Here’s what I wrote:

I know that she’s somewhat innocent, so I take the lead

to awaken her bliss—even as she pleads

to keep gentle our dalliance with gentler teases…
But there’s a door awaiting beyond which our passion releases.

The gate to all mystery she doesn’t yet see-
So I’ll  take her soft hand and guide her to be free.

Through a secret garden we’ll wander to a wondrous land
Where lovers can delight to the fluted music of Pan.

Now, the poem wasn’t finished quite (and is unfinished yet!) when it struck me that maybe Dave could have left me a phone-mail message as to his whereabouts.  So I checked the queue—and, yes, there was a message from Dave, here transcribed below for your illumination:

"Hi, Steve, it’s Dave.  I just wanted to let you know that I have to usher at church this morning.  I forgot to tell you about it when I was talking to you yesterday.  Just go ahead.  The door’s open.  Go ahead and do what you want.  I think it is best to get started caulking…(and here he goes into some details of work that had been preliminarily discussed)…   And, oh, by the way, my daughter (my aside: who’s a 15 year old cutie) is sleeping up there (in the room I’m supposed to work in?!)  --no big deal –don’t worry about it  --she’s the only one home  --my wife will be home later…  so just go ahead and get started."

Now, I’m absolutely flattered that Dave, whom I really don’t yet know, but who got my name from a good reference, is such a magnificent judge of character so as to let me have such an explicit run of the house.  But even though I thereafter entered and remained in the house with the noblest working intentions, I was still shocked that any man would entrust his Sleeping Beauty’s potential welfare to a tradesman practically just off the street.  Yes, I remained honorable of the trust he bestowed to me—but the fact is: he’s never heard of notforprophet!  lmao   And if you couple the ‘shadowy opportunity’ that a lesser-disciplined , more atavistic man might see in this with the stanzas of poetry I wrote in her driveway while she was upstairs asleep—Please.  

Truth is, however, that I was dreaming of another while scribbling those lines—and shall return to that dream to finish what I started.