- Another World -

By John Herlihy

Sometimes I think: Take me to another world,

Out of this familiar world into an alien world hurled.

Take me to a place never experienced before,

Another realm, a field of dreams, on another shore.

It matters not whether the experience is real,

Stripped naked of my earthly world, I begin to feel.

Modest peril accepted as though put to the test.

As I give up my other world and lay it to rest.

Sheer heaviness of the earth did hold me down,

It is lightness that I seek, not the earth’s frown.

From the wind of breath to the breath of water as air,

In the name of this watery world refreshingly rare.

I enter the watery world of ocean on my own,

Thru surface ripples of water by a soft wind blown.

Bereft of all senses but the beloved sense of touch,

My body never before felt such sensuous love as much.

My skein of skin now draped as folds of velvet felt,

Drops of water merge to feel as feathers svelte.

A strong current has wrapped me in its braided rope,

I swim as a fish, fin arms at my sides, a closed envelope.

With the current, I swim deep down to a mysterious place;

Deep feelings of limitlessness fill me in this unique space.

A fluid silence dissolves the other world I have ever known,

Until this silence is broken by sweet melodies of light sewn.

Imagine sonorous sound as sacred hymns of the deep;

Tonal rhythms filled the soul enough to make one weep.

The dark murky waters seemed at first as earth’s night,

Until a creamy richness entered my mind with every sight.

I have brought night’s stars with me from the heavens high;

Only to realize I see silver fish near me, approaching nigh.

In that glassy world, the sun filtered down to touch their tails,

The light luminous as it shimmered across their skein of scales.

Brown trout, snake-like eels, and large carp glided by,

Only living their ordinary lives and seeking food on the sly.

Now a pliant fish, I swim down into depths of silent nothingness,

Seeking that invisible cave where one might encounter a goddess.

I pass a dark grotto, silent and safe, where one might reside;

But the current pulled me further along as I continued to glide.

The ocean’s subterranean world overwhelmed me with its thrill;

I surrendered to its intoxicating rhythms that carried me further still.

There was no need for me to ask anyone for permission to stay;

This other world gave me what I wanted and swept me away.

 We pass between worlds, but in neither world can we stay too long;

We offer ourselves up to the reality that comes with each world song.

I pass back through the invisible door of the earth’s atmosphere,

Now remembering the bearable heaviness of the existential sphere.

Emerging again into the dawn of this new day with fresh seeing,

Fondly remembering my dream and its unbearable lightness of being.

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(c) John Herlihy January 2019