Dreamlike Ship
Endless waves of chaos crash
Against this beach - my consciousness -
The boundary where the speakable
Meets the stormy shapelessness
Here are rocks and towering cliffs
And there are open, beckoning sands
Westward, unencumbered gardens
Eastward, distant barren lands
In the South a frozen desert
Melts into the sun-boiled sea
And North, the primordial water
Shrouds the land ominously
There I walked with cautious steps
Onto a pier, and all round me
Those roaring waves did rise and fall
And blast the platform violently
But I held on, for on those waves
A struggling ship was moving fast
Towards the Northern coast, it flew
Myriad colours on its mast
But where could they have travelled from?
And where did they expect to go
When every inch of this, my home
Is solely mine alone to know?
I watched the vessel through the storm
The waves parting with its advance
When suddenly a gust of wind
Knocked me from my shaky stance
Into the sea I fell and flailed
Amidst the water’s stormy rage
And as the air escaped my lungs
My consciousness did disengage
An angel woke me gently I
Was rescued - on that very that ship!
The same anomaly I feared had
Saved me in its loving grip
As I lay, something reached in
And etched new words into my mind!
A multicoloured light filled up
My vision until I was blind
And when my eyesight did return
I found myself back on the pier
The storm had died, the waters calm
But the ship was no longer here
I gazed at the horizon from
My seated pose upon the shore
Scanning all around I could
Not see the vessel anymore
So they arrived in chaos and
Saved me with their alien grace
And filled me with information
Then vanished without any trace
Novel thoughts flooded my head
Well, from where did those appear?
From nothingness - non-existence -
To new ideas, loud and clear?
It’s safe to say, I cannot know
(Not that I even should wish to)
When that dreamlike ship will return.
I live in faith that it will do.