A Whale of a Dream

Lisa of Tao Talk asks: In the shadows, did you ever secretly wish you were someone else, either as a child or an adult? My answer? I can’t say that I have but like so many children, I’ve often wondered what it was like to be the big creatures of the earth, including the now extinct dinosaurs. Many of them seem like gentle giants, elephants for example. Others strike terrors, like lions and tigers and bears, oh my! But it’s the fantasy creatures that overtake a child’s imagination, like unicorns and griffins and flying horses and magical birds, like the phoenix. Underwater, it’s the music of the whales which seem to have dominion over most of the vast recesses of the world. They live in a universe of their own, unfettered and majestic.

Orca, 2020 by Angela Gram (b. 1985)

There’s an ocean of energy in swelling tides
dancing in atoms and planets and stars
but most of it’s not in the surface above
it rides in the universe of the heart’s designs
wanting the freedom of the sea’s vast lands
where Atlantis lies buried and canyons unfold
and gravity means little to eyes that glow.

Something is missing in the world above,
something that my mind’s eye sinks below
where dreams turn to dust and songs to wails
and gates are just openings to walls within walls.
So give me the sea and the skin of a whale
and tumble me down to the music below.

Sea Castles

seagulls-sea-640

He had waded out too far
The boy in the sea
Knee-deep he stood
As the tide withdrew
Drawing bridges round his toes
Dipped in seaweed

On a mermaid watch
Spying only undulating glass
Alluring sheets of metal grey,
Gathering towers, sparkling spires,
Sudden with a dragon’s curve

And he, turning away too late
To shore, felt the sand give way
Beneath shifting feet of clay,
Merman knee-deep no longer
Arms flailing, gasping watery riddles

Above the cresting wave
Choking fear and salt water
Blinded eyes seeing royal fury
Losing air, light, sky, dreams
In a torrent of sea

Till he grew legs again
Bones plucked from the foam
Tossed back onto the shore
Spluttering at the eddying pool
From which he rose

Like a bird flapping forgotten wings
Then dropping like a stone
On to his knees
Beside fallen sea castles.

dVerse Poets Pub: OLN #278 Rejoice!
Re-posted on JollyBeggar.com
Originally posted on PilgrimDreams.com