Photo Credit: Athens National Museum Thera Fresco

The Meeting Place

A gift should have no strings attached. Maybe ribbons are tied with
getting. No ribbons here.

The greenness of your eyes is rare. If, say, they were pools, then I'd
go swimming there heedless, no doubt, of sharks and other finny things
subaqueous. Sharks in the pools of your eyes? Impossible! Ah yes, I'd
swim and lounge about, otter-like on my back and floating, scanning
whatever sky would be there. The clouds? They could then be your passing
dreams, perhaps. Thunder-heads? Black and stormy? Less foreboding, I
think, and on a good day like the swirls in jade, eddies of galaxies,
vortices of smoke pluming from a fire. In tune with the round of shapes
turning fluids make. So there I'd be, quite content and palmy, dreaming
on a dream of yours, sipping sherry.

If you like, you could take a dip in my swampy sockets, bullfrogs and
all. Bring your hip-waders. It's shallow in there, muddy, confusedly
unclear and oozy on the toes. My mind is like a part of Goldstream Park
where you walk in muck and mire before you reach the source which, of
course, is Saanich Inlet. It's cold, but what the hell: it's a metaphor
after all. So you're swimming.

Now while all of this is going on, while I luxuriate in the balmy
weather of your eyes and you have your wet suit on and swim the frigid
depths of Saanich Inlet, say at the same time that in what some would
call reality we're sitting pretty in a pub, me with my eyes all over you
and you with that smile that's sunk a ship or two, no doubt.

So say we're there while in another reality (the one we share) I'm in
your eyes scarfing liqueurish draughts and you're in mine getting used
to the Inlet's autumn thoughts. Now, of course, way up in the sky
there's a portal for you and me to look out. I'm really in your eyes so
what I see is me when I look out, and what you see is you. And then I
see you in my eyes and you see me. Strange, to inhabit the world of your
dreams, to look out your eyes, see myself, and then see you in my eyes.
How strange for you to live my swampy thoughts in Goldstream Park, look
out the portal of my eyes, see yourself, and then see me in your eyes.

We both turn in fright and swim.

I swim the waters of your soul, the greens and blues therein, and you
head out deeper toward the cement-plant of my soul, you know the
one inset like an angular wart on Saanich Inlet. We swim in fright away
from so mirror-within-mirrorish an image of worlds and selves. The
flight is fast and furious but still, we're in each other's eyes, we
delve and dabble in each other's souls.

Lo and behold: be it by butterfly or breast-stroke crawl or plain dog
paddle we swim to one another. In the distance you see a world familiar
from your dreams and me, oddly enough, dog-paddling madly toward you.
And me, I see my Saanich thoughts and cement plant, and you in the
distance, with your green eyes and blue raven hair, flecks of black
sharding outward from the iris. I almost drown! I'm so surprised. I Gulp
a mouth of water, it's a mixture of Pacific and the salty-warm of your
Caribbean moods.

The clouds collide and dance a round of days to come.
Whole worlds collide, dreams swirl together of yours and mine.
Hurricane?
Tempest?
Cyclone ways?
A kingfisher arcs above:
it's a halcyon day.

And so in this inter-penetrating world of dreams
where my greys mix like oils
with your blues and greens
we dally for some time.

And, my, my, you don't
have a wet-suit on, it seems.

Of course, I am in my usual state of disrepair.
The air is clear though sharp, new. Rare.
Things, as I see them then
are half what they seem to me,
another half is how you say they seem to be.

Dreaming passes seeming there they are:
we see green arcs of jade and say they're smoothness seen.
We call the clouds a stratospheric Swiftsure.
The moon rises and we debate the shade of moods it shows
and know that all things are seen and hinted at tonight.

We lean to kiss,
our eye beams twist and thread
upon one double string.
We dream we dream.

Then it ends
and we are friends or lovers
sitting in a pub
smiling on each other.
That then ends
and I am here,
you are there
sitting in your chair and reading this...


it ends
it begins
ends
begins...

Jim Andrews


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