He steps down from the dark train, blinking; stares

At trees like miracles. He will play games

With boys or sit up all night touching chairs.

Talking with friends, he can recall their names.

Noon burns against his eyelids, but he lies

Hunched in his blankets; he is half awake

But still lacks nerve to open up his eyes;

Supposing it were just his old mistake?

But no; it seems just like it seemed.

His folks Pursue their lives like toy trains on a track.

He can foresee each of his father’s jokes

Like words in some old movie that’s come back.

He is like days when you’ve gone some place new

To deal with certain strangers, though you never

Escape the sense in everything you do,

“We’ve done this all once. Have I been here, ever?”

But no; he thinks it must recall some old film, lit

By lives you want to touch; as if he’d slept

And must have dreamed this setting, peopled it,

And wakened out of it. But someone’s kept

His dream asleep here like a small homestead

Preserved long past its time in memory

Of some great man who lived here and is dead.

They have restored his landscape faithfully:

The hills, the little houses, the costumes,

How real it seems! But he comes, wide awake,

A tourist whispering through the priceless rooms

Who must not touch things or his hand might break

Their sleep and black them out. He wonders when

He’ll grow into his sleep so sound again.