Memory or Dream?

 

In January I had to take a poetry class for part of my requirements for my B.A. in creative writing. Now, writing poetry isn’t really my thing, and reading it, well, it’s not high on the priority list. Every once in a while I find a poem that gets me though and after writing a few silly things that I knew I couldn’t pass in as actual work, I came up with this:

The Green

Rays spread out like the cloak of heaven

it’s soft fibers brush against my legs.

in the undulating motion,

Ffotsam drifts on silent wings.

Now shining in the light,

now hidden in the shadow,

beneath the cool,

beneath the green.

Weightless, I am not scared for I can see you

your dark silhouette against the brightness.

hours do not exist, nor minutes

only moments and all

is calm,

above the cool,

above the green.

I am at peace,

yet peace is broken.

by your grasp, so swift, so strong.

and the nymph gleaming

at the edges turned and flicked

and fled, through the cool,

through the green.

A vivid picture lingers

suspended in my mind

but a picture cannot restore

the tranquillity of  that place,

my soul

among the cool,

among the green.

 

This poem was inspired by my earliest childhood memory–at least, I think it is a memory. My parents had taken me to some kind of park or campground or something, and my dad and I walked down to the water. I remember jumping in and once under the water, opening my eyes to see this wonderful green color and waves of some kind of water weed waving in the current. I remember looking up at my dad standing on the dock. He just looked at me, no panic in his eyes or anything and then, his hand broke the surface of the water and hauled me out. I don’t remember anything after that, but the image of the water, the vivid color and that serene feeling remain.

So, is it memory or dream? What is your first memory?