the poet's reality

THE DEEP WORLD OF ROUSSEAU


He planes down
To where creatures thrive
In that silken blue
Light fragile as snowflakes
On the tongue.

Startled by a dorsal fin,
His senses electrify,
Amplify the liquid world; bleating
The banshee wail
In his own heart.

Some denizens have hunger like sharks.
Others are chic as angelfish
And just as fatal.
And some smile all day,
Rolling and blowing,
Rolling and blowing.

Here he plaints;
And here he learns his tales;
In the spectroscope of water,
In the liquefied air.


February 1982

Ah!  The bay!  How it touched my imagination!  I have often felt like an alien, observing the behavior of the people of the earth, as if I had descended out of my element into the ocean to observe marine behavior.

This sense of alienation reminds me of my favorite novel by Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent Into Hell.  A story of an amnesiac angel (perhaps, or a schizophrenic) who falls to earth has been published in various versions.