The Dream Well

Leave The Island: A Dreampoem

DREAM

It’s time to leave my friend on the island and embark the ferry back to the mainland.  I drive on in the middle lane, stopping abruptly when signaled by the traffic director. “You need to be in that lane by the window.  Make a U-Turn, drive to the end of the ferry, then back up the car in the far lane by the window.”  It seems like a strange command, but I follow directions.  While backing in, I  crash through the wide open portal on the side of the boat.  The car hangs precariously over the sill and the hammering of my heart rivals the percussion section in “The Rite of Spring.” Puget Sound in January runs an average of 45 ｺ, hardly an invitation to drop in for a visit.  I contemplate the possibility of drowning in the car if it dropped into the water.  The very thought of suffocation cuts off my breath, so I decide to take my chances on surviving in the water.  I jump out of the car into the depths.  I swim effortlessly, feeling emancipated, at one with the Sound.  It is as though “I am in the sea, and the sea is in me.”  I experience true peace for the first time, free from fear.

POEM

Ego skims
The surface of
Life’s Lanes
Looking to escape
Its wrong-way-one-way
Insular ambages,
Until the call to
Leave the island
Pushes it to the edge
Where water once devined
Cannot be called back.

c. rita h kowats 2013

Thanks so much for this post from Rita Kowats, an inspirational explorer of the soul with a talent for distilling the essence of a dream into a profound human truth.  If you like this, you may enjoy more of her writing at “Spirituality Without Borders.”