Sleep, Dream, Wake, Sleep, Dream

Reflections,
Ripples in time,
Compressions,
Creases in the flow,
Voices,
Leaking like oil,
I am drowning in this love,
Head bobbing above the waves,
Waves of consciousness,
That lift and fall, lift and fall,
Leaving purple stains on my mind,
Revealing cave drawings, illiterate sounds, extinct smells,
I am drowning in this love,
Beyond loneliness, beyond boredom, beyond activity,
I am swept up on the shore of this natural habitat,
A stranger, a refugee, a stowaway,
Saved from salvation,
At least for now.
At least
for
now.

(This is a poem about consciousness. About the boundary between sleeping and dreaming and waking up. Each night we experience a shift in consciousness when we dream. Each night we 'drown' in our dreams and then we wake up. In our dreams we see things and feel things that appear real and then we wake up. Similarly, who knows what other levels of consciousness might exist and how we 'sleep/wake up' from these? The poem speculates on this theme using the boundary between air and water as the metaphor for a shift in consciousness. Can you imagine if you had never fallen asleep in your life and then it happened to you for the first time and you felt yourself 'nodding off'? Can you imagine how frightening this would be and how much faith it would require to trust that you would wake up again in the morning? :) And yet without sleep we could not function, could not survive. Similarly, without love we could not function, we could not survive. Yet to lose yourself in the consciousness of love is terrifying and requires great faith. Much better to fight this temptation and save ourselves form salvation don't you think?)