4. Sea of Space
As the sunset turned to dusk and the crimson turned to black,
The friendly man took course inland with a sea breeze on his back.
To unknown places near and far to new ideas and wishes -
From stars and solar systems to dinosaurs and fishes.
Which made him hold a passing thought of marine life and its grace
How life below the waves glides on like it were a sea of space.
As if on cue, he came across a huge, but placid lake
Which made him think how beautiful a mirror it would make.
And thus, he pretended that it reflected out to space
And all the life below the surface was in a different place.
Like a vision in a dream he stepped onto the lake
And walked upon the mirrored skin, quite sure it wouldn’t break.
As he walked, he looked below and marveled at the shapes
Of all the different creatures and the alien waterscapes.
Then he changed positions with his very own reflection
And found himself inside the world of unparalleled perfection.
The monsters and the midgets the starfish and the squid
All floated there with equal grace - their colours grandly vivid.
Each life form in its own domain - each food for the others thought
Each designed to be assured that it’s unlikely to get caught.
But even the best defenses fail because sometimes size is all that counts
When it comes to preying on little things to eat in huge amounts.
A fierce and ugly-looking fish the size of a mothership
Grew larger in the distance opening huge, mechanical lips
In sure anticipation of a meal that it had seen -
A creature made of plasma, emanating coloured beams.
It was no longer water that this dream was playing in -
The vast expanse of buoyancy had become a space within.
The water was a vacuum and the bubbles became stars
The creatures all became huge ships that could have come from Mars.
With fluidness of motion and gracefulness and speed
They glided through the nothingness with no friction to impede.
All the creatures were mechanical and a vacuum was their place -
The fish were scaly starships and the water became space.
Then far away in the distance, there was a friendly glow,
Like a sun that could be rising in this spaced-out water show.
The light grew brighter all the time like a supernova star
And soon the entire sea of space was lit up near and far.
In the middle of the glare, a tiny flame was seen,
Illuminating everything - lighting up the dream.
Then, as if to say it was enough, the flame became a squid,
The friendly man flipped back to the surface - and just as well he did
Because the space returned to water and the ships turned back to fish
And the mirror of the water now looked like a satellite dish.
It reflected stars and asteroids and moons and meteorites
To reassure that Airy Land was perfectly allright.
As he crossed the mirror lake - hands clasped behind his back -
The friendly man looked up to see the starscape looking back.
He softly laughed and shook his head - his heart was light and proud.
His flame was somewhere up there, playing hide and seek with a cloud.
Soon the shore came into sight - from dry water to dry land -
Only one place this could be, he mused. Yup. Must be Airy Land.
SJ
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