Dreamtime

In pensive mood this early morn
I walk alone alongside a bay,
a glassy china bowl of grey
beneath a low, evanescent mist.
By a tidal pool I kneel to rest
and draw my hand through its jadeite
glass, whereupon a rippling wavelet
breaks the calm. There, a bit deeper,
where limpets and other such sleepers
cling to the rocks, a solitary starfish
catches my eye, its pentacled, purplish
shape perfectly poised. It is then,
in one of those fragile moments when
light and thought are both reflective,
I sense, as in a trance, my introspective
self, strangely distant, yet so near.
And what beseeching call do I hear
beckoning from some other shoal?
A circling gull? A disembodied soul?
When magically I'm above the shore,
as through the unveiled sky I soar,
like some rarefied phoenix— half me,
half fledgling-feathered-fantasy—
now sailing over a seaside field,
gently waking flowers that yield
in the wind and change their hue
from blue to white and back to blue.
Weightless on these wings of faith,
I leave the mortal realm beneath,
now high above the hills, now lifting
heavenward until, amongst drifting
clouds, the creation and I become one—
when instantly my wings are gone,
this glimpse of the eternal dispelled,
the dreamtime quelled, the angel felled,
the world of grave and gravity reborn.