The Harbor of My Longing

In the harbor of my longing
is a long and solitary pier,
jetting out to an ocean
of the unknown.

Do I dare dip my feet in?
Practicality tells me my only
option is to dive.

But I am afraid.
What if the ocean sweeps
me away with her courage?

The imagination goes first.
The water is cold and deep
but the weightlessness
of imagination doesn't sink too far.

"Let me experience this,"
I offer the timid resistance.

What is it that I am resisting,
exactly?
An imaginary dive?
And why must the waters be so
cold?

Ah! I'm a California girl and
our ocean beckons only the
brave and thick-skinned.

But - alas - my imagination
carries me to clean, tropical
waters.
And I float in joy.

The harbor, giving room to meet
me exactly where I am, 
waits patiently without
expectation.

The longing becomes irrelevant.
It is only me and the sea
and the warmth of life
cradling me in safe
emotion.

Bliss, wonder, contentedness
and expansion glance 
at the assurance of the 
harbor.
I know I can reach it if
and when I desire.
The longing cleansed by the 
courage of the dive.

My imagination knows how
to swim, effortlessly,
like the sea goddess of 
other realms.
The remembrance tucked away
in misunderstood DNA.
Generations of life and love
and universes beyond
my comprehension buoy
me, enable me to filter the
oxygen from the water, and
dance gracefully on the
waves below.

My mind wonders the value of
such an imagination, but
the sea dancer twirls
joyfully deeper into
clarity and presence.

"You don't even like water that
much," my mind calls out,
"and you're a terrible swimmer!"

Irrelevant!

The dance continues, merging ocean
with air, life with forgetting,
courage with wisdom,
and the wherewithal to dive
​beyond the harbor of my longing.

Inspired from Mary Oliver's poem Mornings at Blackwater Pond 

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