This poem poured out of my pen in January 2024, during a quiet day at Disney’s Port Orleans French Quarter. I dedicate this piece to my daughter, Isabella.
Dream It, Do It
My eyes close
as the mellow notes of jazz
glide along the air, as
Isabella and I sit
side by side
at the small speckled-gray table
near the Mardi Grogs bar.
I sip my citrusy Jai Alai IPA,
she sips her fruit punch Power Ade.
I scratch these words,
in electric-blue ink,
on a sheet of parchment
I requested
from the drawing pad
in which she sketches
yellow and orange Mickey Mouse heads
clustered tightly in a circle.
“Oh my God, I love that painting,”
I had gushed earlier in the day
at Epcot,
bee-lining for the same solitary tree
now mirrored in my daughter’s sketchbook.
I have this thing, you see,
for solitary trees.
I see myself
in them,
in their nakedness
in their beauty and strength
in their steady, independent durability
to withstand
whatever life throws at them.
That was me,
and that’s her.
Only she brings their leaves to life
through thousands of tiny Mickey heads
comingling
in oranges, yellows, and golds–
like a sunburst
rippling with magic.
And
suddenly,
I want to be her
tree.
*Image taken from Walt Disney World News Today at www.wdwnt.com. According to the website, this painting is titled “Dream It, Do It” by artist Greg McCullough. It depicts a golden tree with swirling filigrees hidden in its leaves. In the background is the hot air balloon from Disney Springs, Spaceship Earth, Tree of Life, and Cinderella Castle (it was commissioned at a time when Disney’s Hollywood Studios was between park icons). It contains 52 hidden characters and 32 hidden Mickeys.