Infinite Me

Sometimes, between
waking and sleeping, I
play hookey from life,
sneaking off campus,
when I should be a student
learning by rote
the names of all things,
the facts and figures
and matters that matter,
which I am told I need
in order to get by in degrees.

Between waking and sleeping, I
run from this practice.
I hide from lessons planned
and off I slip into a secret land

where matters are ruled
by matters of heart,
not by the talk of a clock
or the digital dance
of a world that is caught
in cables and screens
and hand-carried things.

In this in-between,
I almost dream,
free of all aches and pains;
and all my worries
go down the drain
with nothing
to lose or to gain.

I swim the seas
with buttery ease.
I fly the skies
with Peter Pan eyes.
I tie clouds on a string
and wild buffaloes sing
while I walk the beach
with my love

and we write in the sand
with our non-dominant hand
all the lessons we've learned
and don't need.

Then we set them free
on the AB seas
and we turn to
an ocean of love,

but just as the tide
takes us out on a ride
I'll be damned
if a bell doesn't ring.

When I open my eyes
from this private time
and see it in minutes –
it’s been only three!
Waking and sleeping
and what’s in-between?
I name it “infinite me.”

Perhaps you have had one of those moments, somewhere between wake and sleep, when you enter a magic realm, and it feels as if a long time has passed, but you are surprised to find it was only a few moments of clock time. This playful poem is about that magic realm, a land of fantastic beings and magic moves, a fantasy world where I am free to fly as a bird or swim like a fish!

I have had this sense of the magical realm my whole life, a fantasy world that seems as real as this one, if not more so, and I often feel I am just a hairsbreadth away from slipping into it.

Do you have an active inner world?
What world waits for you
when you enter that space
between waking and sleeping?

See below for a video recital of the poem with some commentary.

Please share your thoughts and comments below.