Imaginary Worlds

The temple gate is worn. Paint is peeling.
The mortar is grey and flaking out.
Specks of it drifting in the canal.

It is overgrown. You do not recognize the lush growth
that crawls over the foundations
and reaches for the windows.

A bird squalls in the distance. Raw and raucous.
Sit on the shore long enough and you see
all sorts of flotsam drift by.

The moment you came out of the brush,
you saw it in black and white. You saw
as it might have been,

fresh, full of worshipers and spider monkeys.
Temple bells tinking in the wind.
Incense burning. A different world.

One that lived only in your head,
fed by books and poetry until this moment,
rising out of the artificial jungle.

It’s a flaw of yours. Or perhaps your saving grace.
Seeing what is not there, Imaginary worlds so real
they just might be true.

If only to you.

About this poem.

Let’s start with the picture. I took it in Disney World. In color, the shades and hues are too bright and too perfect to be real. Plants were placed too perfectly. Disney-beautiful. But me? I saw just what you are seeing here. A spot that could be anywhere in Indochina – India, Cambodia, Burma. I stood there a while, seeing, not imagining – Seeing in my mind in a different world from the crowds that walked past, eager to get from where they were to where they were going. I had a reason to linger.

I do that a lot. See what is not there. Or see what people do not see in themselves. It comes from having read so many books since I was a child. To me, the world was a place of infinite possibilities and infinite visions. You got to choose the one you see.

I am not sure it is the best of traits. But it has its advantages. I see colors brighter than most people. Lines seem sharper. Silence to me is not an empty thing but a world full of thought and feelings. A Van Gogh Starry Night . I see way more beauty in most people than they see in themselves.

Does it mean I am disappointed when reality kicks in? It does. Is it worth it to live in a world of fascination and beauty? It is. Despite the world’s best efforts to make me succumb to ungliness, I live somewhere else.

This one was inspired by stumbling on an old book about meditation and seeing on my bookshelves this morning.

Living in my imaginary world,

Tom