gone twenty years - an older poem

has the clock gone twenty years now?
I never sought to drowse so long
in this dispassionate bed
where perpetual strangers meet,
but the days held themselves aloof
and the charms of stepping out
were more elusive
than the songs of staying put,
despite the restless soulnights,
relieved only by transient, craving dreams.

my body lay in state these many years,
passions pooled in muscle,
and actions locked in bone,
and as I stir now, I see
even my writing hand grown cramped and stiff
from countless resets of the alarm,
and from so many frantic graspings
at the same stylized dream.

but what harm is it to sleep
and dream through twenty years,
when I had not hands and will
to paddle and steer
my self and soulful skiff,
from these doldrums of fear?

what waters await?
what waits in the water?
will I lose my hands
to ragged stumps
when I reach to paddle
from these leaden dreams?

what portions of my heart
will leap from soul to sea
and choose to stay behind
and not depart with me?

when storms pound
and waves overlay,
and doubt fills the hull
faster than any sea,
who will return my fearful glance,
whose wordless eyes will say,
“yes, you might – but not alone.”

and if a month of months pass
and the only sound I hear
is the lap-lap-lap
of indifferent waves,
and the only warmth I feel
is the raspy tongue of the sun,
peeling flesh from my shoulders,
and the only softness I receive
comes from a lead gray moon
a quarter million miles away,
will I miss my old, homey trepidations?

but I ask myself
how all those accumulated nothings
differ from these doldrums of fear,
and my only answer is
to dip my hands into the water
and push,
as my eyes drip salt -
a token payment to the sea,
my salt-oath sign and pledge
of undertaking the voyage.

the sea takes my payment
and makes its own reply,
with my every timid stroke,
ripples dance and bubbles churn,
gently coaxing fingers to open
and palms to cup,
to better hold handfuls of progress.

even my writing hand
accepts its liquid liberation,
releasing the last bits
of graydream flotsam
it had been cherishing.

as the cramped muscles
savor the demands of freedom,
my shoulders sweep forward,
calling my body from slumber to survival,
lunging uncertainly toward some shore
that might offer berth and rebirth.

with a shrug, the sea gives way,
for at least one moment -
and the journey begins.