A Dream of Water

A Dream of Water

Water means secrets
Something deeply buried
Moving, unconsciously, through
Chthonic thought-rivers,
Emotional waterfalls,
Pools of sacred transformation.
Or sex. Or money.
That which flows,
Yet never without consequence.
Deeply felt; deeply brought in
To those secret liquid pathways
Etching out existence as
We know it.

A dream of water is a prophecy
Written into the DNA,
Waiting for the day to manifest.
It is a dream about secret dreams,
Sacred ceremony,
That which cannot be named.
That which is always present.
Somehow the source is speaking
Perhaps in rhyme and metaphor,
Yet speaking still, insistently.
Listen.
Let it insinuate into all the senses,
Let it speak.

Times are tentative.
I cannot always know what
Is safe to say. Or whisper.
The dream tells me that
There are secreted beaches
In the cacophony and stench
Of the callous city.
Places meant for refuge, re-creation.
They are hidden from the hostile streets,
But hardly peacefully obscure.
The hordes are slipping through the
Tear in the chain-linked fence,
Pushing, uncaring, blindly moving
Toward the sand.
They push and tumble into the ocean,
Far too overwhelmed by their numbers,
Their size.
No room! No room!
"But there's plenty of room,"
Roar the jolly clowns
Like over-inflated plastic beach toys.

I must escape the suffocation.
The tunnel out is too small, stifling.
I must crawl, on my knees,
Pulling myself forward
With each wisp of breath.
There is no end,
I am certain.
Just agonizing suffocation,
Superhuman effort again and again.
Until the city reappears.

It is different; it is quiet.
Everyone is at the beach,
Reveling in the sunlight.
Here it is dark. Practically empty.
The store windows are lighted
For the night display, muted,
Like starlight.
It is a long comforting walk
In the night air.

But this is a dream of water.
There, that endless, inky lake,
Reaching out past north and south
Horizons.
Deep, solid, dense, darkly opaque,
Welcoming.
I look out over the iron edge of the bridge
Upon which I gently walk along the pavement.
There are two children on the bridge,
Quietly playing,
Shining softly in the way
That happy children do,
At peace,
In the water's protective embrace.