I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully,a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
In this poem, the speaker travels to the centre of her lover's subconscious. The "smooth dark wave" in stanza one is his breath, which is her conduit into his mind. The weird images in stanza two ("watery sun and three moons") indicate the lover's dream-like state. She wishes to protect him from the fears and grief he must confront in his subsconscious, represented by the "cave". The speaker tries to guide him up the "stairway" in line 19, which personifies the path from his subscious back to reality. She tries to protect his life force, represented by the "flame" of line 22. In this poem, the speaker does not merely want to get closer to her lover, she wishes to protect him. She envisions herself as his guardian, rowing the boat (line 21), holding the flame (line 22), and acting as his air (line 28).