Impossible Dream

When they bought a record player console
with sliding cabinet doors, my parents
treated it like their most prized 
possession— something to throw
a flannel cover on when not in use, 
in case the chill mountain air might warp 
its wooden panels. The Impossible Dream
from The Man of La Mancha was my father's 
favorite recording. He had the Jack Jones
and Johnny Mathis, and later the Frank 
Sinatra version from the album That's Life. 
He liked to sit in an armchair after dinner, 
eyes closed as he listened to the singer's 
voice pull up and up toward the unreachable, 
as the music swelled like a wave on a dark
night pinpricked with stars inside
his chest. He told me Cervantes' story 
of a man who charged at windmills, believing 
they were giants; of how he vowed to fight
for the helpless and infirm. This 
was a noble quest, he stressed— to 
bear the unbearable sorrow and right
the unrightable wrong. I couldn't fathom
then what sorrows he could have been carrying, 
what wrongs he might have needed to address.
He's been gone more than thirty years, 
yet when the world feels tilted, I remember
how sure his voice sounded, as if 
the dream— any dream— was within reach.