The Tree of You and the Pool of Me

There is time, and time enough again, I tell myself,

For I fear you swept away by tide, or so diluted, lost to sight.

But water lives to bring us life, and as a creature of the sea,

I know its strength, and how knowing it, heals me.

You must swim, on now, uncertain tides of who you are,

Made uncanny by twisting, turning life,

The current running now with undertow,

Are you to sink or swim and trust the flow?

A coursing torrent pent up now in hidden pools of self,

Ink black power caught in childhood’s pain,

Limpid pools of hurt and shame,

Part the rushes at the water’s edge,

Dip your finger and see the ripples flow,

Feel your finger burn with unaccustomed glow,

Is the burning water cold or hot?

Roaring fires of rage or unremitting frozen fear?

Truth is here, here, beneath the surface,

A reverent place of sacred knowing,

Tension too, it must be broken,

The skin of waters surface pushed aside.

Take the plunge into pools of you, mysterious in their shrouded depths.

Know fear too. The fear of all swimmers. of what lies beneath,

The nameless dread of unknown creatures of the deep,

Who’s to know? Who you are? How have you become?

Dive, and dive again, imbibe and take your fill.

But you are not me, a creature of the sea,

No. A seed, a seed is who you have made yourself to be.

A seed, to grow a mighty tree,

Soaked, swelling with new and unaccustomed knowledge,

There is time, and time enough again, I tell myself,

For you to return, still unknown to you, and more to me,

Plant yourself the seed, grow yourself the tree, choose this place,

Besides this pool marked by you and filled by me,

This place a haven, a common bowl carved in rock,

Heart pumped life, to fill, and fill again,

To gently over spill the lip and trickle, over, down and through,

Ink-black pools of limpid water joined, now to the flooding tide,

Held water, once still and caught in the places of un-becoming,

Re-join the ebbing flood that falls and flows and fills, and fills again.

Returning now, the mingled waters hold, and hold within the rock-hewn bowl,

Knowing water, for me, the creature of the sea, and nourish now the rooted life of you spreading free.

And there it is, my dream; The tree of you, and the pool of me.

Listening to album- Late Night Tales - Barry Can’t Swim