Dream Poem 87: Bus Trip to an Island

It is cold and I have got gloves and coat to keep warm
I catch the bus and end up on a dessert island cast away with some sailors.

They are an island nation like Tahiti or Hawaii
I learn to understand life in the island
The tides
The gifts from the sea
Village life.

In the village there is no marrying
But people couple off as they want.

Another influx of westerners arrive
Large girls in prom dresses and sailors
There is a general free for all.

I observe and think
“They are being very disrespectful, grasping and rude.”
“Greedy.”
I think to myself
“They will learn
They will understand this is not done, not acceptable.”
They are just grabbing people to have sex with.

I have fallen in love with an island man,
he is a carpenter and has tools
We like each other but it Is not their way to stay as a couple and commit to each other.
So I keep my thoughts to myself.

There is a crisis.
A very large group go out to sea and are lost.
They never come back
And they must choose a new leader.

The new leader is unsuitable
 he disregards the customs and things go wrong
People are hungry
The sea washes away houses and supplies it is a disaster.

The village goes through a couple of weeks of hard times,
different men try to be the leader.
But there are problems each time.

At last I decide to go and take my man with me.
I am not sure if he wants to come
and at first he is reluctant to leave.

But at last he sees it is the only option
As everything else has gone
and the people have descended into fighting and chaos.

Inwardly I feel victorious and supremely happy
I imagine our lives together and I feel settled and content.

But we have to get home first
I gather his tools and put them in my rucksack
I decide to take clay too – bags of it
and my rucksack was full of sea water and so heavy.

At last the man had reconciled himself to leaving
Of saying goodbye to his home and community
With me.

And I thought about how happy we would be together
in my house in Rodley.
I put my gloves back on

and walked into the cold wind of a bus station.

(image from Natural History Museum, London)

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