Poetry > Back to Poetry contents

This Dreamy Ocean of Time

Some say the soul is pure light
but it is also the dark.
The soul loves to swim in inky waters -
seeks shelter beneath the sponges
embedded in a deep-sea coral reef.
Here the waters are cold – numbing.
The soul feeds on plankton and takes respite.

It is true the soul recharges in sunlight -
illuminates our vision of this world.
We appreciate the splash of colour on
simple objects – a ray of light cast
On the breakfast table – the marmalade
glistening and the china teapot somehow
so comforting and fine.

Even so - the soul cannot bear too
much light – this is a delicate matter.

The soul dives deep down – it has need
of gravity’s natural law – the sensation
of sinking. Life and all of its pleasures,
all of its pains, is a distant call – to be
washed up as an echo in seashells – or the
rhythmic plop, plop of a fish’s gills caught
in a net as it struggles to take in air,
mouthing, ‘breathe, breathe – come back to life.’

Sometimes the call of silence is all-powerful,
a magnetic pull towards the calm - the ease –
of inertia. Then the soul longs to do nothing –
to be nothing - to curl up tight around the heart.
And so we sleep peacefully in this dreamy ocean
of time.

(For Elspeth – April 2010)