“I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
This poem is not about delusions of grandeur or a superiority complex. Rather, it is about objectivity. It highlights the way that we should sometimes distance ourselves from our familiar surroundings and look objectively at them without any trace of involvement or immersion in the minutiae. The higher one flies, the less details one sees and the bigger picture emerges. We can distance ourselves from our surroundings and while far away we can see the totality rather the trifling and isolated fine features. The problem of course is that by distancing ourselves too much we can become self-absorbed, remote, haughty – if thrown back into the middle of the fray of our everyday life we may suffer, as the real world with all its distractions and details that are blown out of proportion, will suddenly impinge on us with the force of hitting the ground at great speed…
The Dream
Mercury-heavy sleep
Rolls over my eyelids
And closes them fast
Like drawn window shutters.
I’m free as an eagle soaring
High up in the cerulean skies;
Flying over oceans,
Gliding effortlessly over fields.
Rivers below me, flowing,
The crowds pullulate:
Liars, cheats, schemers,
Innocents, gullible fools.
Politicians skilled, artful orators,
Speak and beguile the masses,
Who like sleepwalkers follow
With their dreams betrayed.
I fly high up into the aether
Indifferent to it all,
Laughing with the puny,
Pathetic play-acting.
From afar all is manifest,
All faults and falsities displayed.
I touch the purity of the stars,
The moon promises me white roses.
My wings carry me ever upwards,
The clouds below me,
The wind behind me,
As it cannot catch up with me,
Until the Sun-King rises,
And robs me of my wings.
And here I am, as I awaken,
Falling back to earth…
Jacqui BB hosts Poetry Wednesday. Please visit her blog for a bag full of verse!
Getting above our petty problems is a good prospective to achieve from time to time.
ReplyDeleteNeighborhoods and borders disappear from on high for sure.
Yes, it is about perspective. Seeing the forest and not just the trees. It feel refreshing to take such a look from a distance.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful poem.
An elegant an skilful poem, Nicholas, but it did not involve me as much as your poems usually do. Reading your introduction (they are always beautifully written!) makes me feel that maybe that was the point of the poem...
ReplyDelete