PALM SUNDAY MORNING DREAM

what was gandolfini doing walking up to our table sitting down looking at me with recognition smiling saying he'd looked forward to our conversation ... I saw then that though he still looked like gandolfini he was in fact the parish priest but not my parish not my priest and this premise in my mind must have been the support for an unintended superiority in my voice or face ... an oily slickness perhaps ... that said ... and what can we do for you father ... he drew himself in from the gut up and swelled prodigiously and in a voice I never heard on tv said I am a bishop of jerusalem ... impressed I replied what do I call you ... turning from me with a sweep of his huge head to my companion but his eyes still on my face he said bishop ... the voice the word the city his size or all of them together made me call for retreat and I opened my eyes to yet another palm sunday unobserved ... unobserved this time but for his look his balloon-like appearance and the profound solidity in his eye ... it was not his offended authority that stayed in my mind but his authority revealed that warms me still