A Real Boat

author’s note:

I’ve learned the hard way: you don’t tell the river what to do, the river tells you.


A REAL BOAT

When I found a rowboat by the bank
the wise one within gave me this whim:
why not step
into that little wooden boat
and shove off down the river?

Yes, I use metaphor
but I really am in a rowboat.
Oh yeah—
when rough waters
began to pummel the hull
I could barely walk down the street
as I rocked and reeled
from the turbulence I felt.

But I didn’t consider jumping
until I reached the shoals
because then I was forced
to go slow, so very slow.

In frustration
I pulled harder on the oars—
I pulled…I pulled…I pulled—
oh how I struggled!

To little effect, yes, but
as a result
I did not fall asleep
but instead
built strength.

Then by handling the madness
of all those twisted turns
I found I could handle more
than I ever believed possible.

Yes, I could’ve educated myself
with a long walk along the bank.
And if I’d taken a steamer
I would’ve traveled much farther
down this river.
But I would not have learned
how to push and how to pull
how to steer and how to follow.

I will now use a pun:
I keep enrolling in this river class
because the course continues to change
and so I continue to learn
how to pilot this boat
I once chose on a whim
guided by the wisdom within.

mythsteps · a real boat

What I Learned While Alone: poetry book
dream steps blog
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© 2024, Michael R. Patton

Finding What's Never Lost

author’s note:

Alas, I decided I needed to change my favorite line:

“I struggled to free myself / from whatever invisible clothesline held me.”


FINDING WHAT’S NEVER LOST

Dreams know where we need to go.

So last night I found myself suspended
in an empty black space.
How high or how low
I did not know.
I only knew
I could not move.

And because I felt so helpless
and because my predicament made no sense
I struggled to free myself
from whatever unseen force
held my flight in check.

But the futility of this fight
only increased my anxiety—
tension built inside my chest.

I feared I might soon explode
or else implode
if I continued to battle
and so
I stopped squirming like an unearthed earthworm
and let my frame be flimsy and empty
and sag haplessly in that unknown space.

Then I waited—
enduring the tedious torture
of being pinned—
waited
until the child within
finally trusted the situation enough
to stop whining

Then in the quiet
my torment ended
as I began to sense a solid reality
beneath my dangling feet.
Again I felt
the strength within my soul.

So easy to forget that secret truth.
Fortunately I’m reminded
ever so often
when a frightening dream
asks me to find
the gain that can never be lost.

mythsteps · finding whats never lost

Get the Message: short guide for understanding dreams
dream steps blog
myth steps blog
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© 2024, Michael R. Patton

A Plume from a Whale

author’s note:

I’m a menagerie.  Who isn’t?


A PLUME FROM A WHALE

Today’s dark rain reminds me
of the day I almost drown.

And with the memory
I struggle once more
not to drown in the dark.

At such times I sometimes
lift myself
by imagining I’m a whale.

And so, despite my great capacity
I must rise to surface occasionally

to explode in the sun
with a geyser of steam—
a white plume—
a painful release—
an offering.

Some say that sunlit fountain
is just a bit of spit.
Maybe so
but that brief blow allows this whale
to take another breath
before returning
to the dark blue life
that feeds us so well.

Today, I offer these lines
to all you other leviathans
hoping you may remember:
even the strongest creature
must sometimes surrender
and rise to spout the deep water out
so that it won’t drown in the dark.

mythsteps · A Plume from a Whale

What I Learned While Alone: poetry book
dream steps blog
myth steps blog
you tube channel
© 2024, Michael R. Patton

The Dream of the Drop

author’s note:

The theory stated by the train traveler in this poem is a truncated version of an idea first proposed by Dr. Allan Hobson.


THE DREAM OF THE DROP

Before I woke this morning I saw
a drop of rain fall down through
a strange starless night
and land
with tiny silvery ripples
in a river glistening black—a river
without beginning or end.

In the dream, I then
peered through a microscope lens
and found in that dark-blue drop
a luminous web of complexity.
The sensory nerves of a spirit.

Thus
an event that first seemed
of little importance
suddenly felt momentous.

Later I told a man on the train:
“That drop is me, my life
 and the river symbolizes
 this metaphysical truth:

“what is here now
 has always been
 and will always be.”

With a yawn, the man replied
“You’re so desperate for meaning
 you’ll invent meaning
 where meaning
 doesn’t actually exist.

“Don’t you know?—
 dreams are merely the product
 of random neural firings
 in the brain as we sleep.”

Having heard that argument before
I then ended our little engagement
with this countermove I’d practiced:

“If an event feels significant
 then isn’t it significant?
 Yeah, maybe I am desperate
 but life loses life when life loses meaning.

“The fact is:
 neither one of us can prove our ideas.
 So now the question is:
 of the two, which belief serves us best?”

mythsteps · the dream of the drop

Get the Message: short guide for understanding dreams
dream steps blog
myth steps blog
you tube channel
© 2024, Michael R. Patton