~The poet uses the butterfly net of language to catch fleeting images in mid-flight~

Friday, July 22, 2011

Crossroads


Joy,
Effusive feeling,
Heart pumping,
And I’m jumping,
Jumping overboard.
Abandoning ship,
I leap into the frothy wake
Of a watery domain.
No alarm is given
And the ship moves on.
As the sea quiets itself,
Dolphins suddenly appear.
They move in close
To cavort at my sides.
Slapping their tails,
They wheel about
And stare at me
With absolute recognition.
I am overwhelmed
By, yet, another wave of joy.
The heralds of my destiny
Have arrived.
They have come
To escort me to an island,
Terra Nueva,
A new place of being.
There are no maps
To show the way,
Only ancient memory and knowingness.
The dolphins are my brothers and sisters
Peers of the human race.
Yet, they never built a civilization.
They never made anything.
No libraries,
No penitentiaries,
No monuments to fallen heroes.
No big investments for the future.
No applications for meaningless jobs.
They didn’t make money
And they never went bankrupt.
They never made war
And annihilate whole races.
But what is the secret
Between our race and theirs?
Why did they reject the land
And return to the sea?
Why did they diverge
From our path?
From the need to conquer
And control?

Perhaps they didn’t want to pay
The price we will.