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is for us to name the vessel,

      To unfurl the flag,

      To set course

      Across an uncharted sea.

      3. Exploration

      It's a strange world,

      made of echoing emptiness

      pulling itself together…

Anastasya Shepherd

      To blossom into being

      A new world needs travelers.

      Now we are here,

      Calling out to each other:

      “Look!”, “Did you hear that?”,

      “This feels just like…”

      “Watch out!”, “Where does this…”,

      “Well done!” “What if?”

      Now we are here,

      Exploring with all our senses:

      Humor, awe, dread, irony, appreciation, wonder.

      When we gaze up

      Celestial bodies

      Flare into existence,

      Dance with each other.

      Flocks wing across the sky,

      Swarms billow over bogs,

      The air comes alive

      With singing, buzzing, courting, hunting, pollinating.

      Each step we take tells us

      What is underneath our feet:

      Grass, ice, rock,

      A swaying bridge above the mist

      That rises from the chasm

      To cling to our ankles.

      I do not know how far

      We are destined to travel.

      But I trust this world

      To keep unfolding space and time

      For our journey of exploration,

      For as long as we are here.

      4. Siren song

      …you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them.

Homer (translated by Samuel Butler)

      Sirens have two kinds of songs

      To lure those who come near them,

      To bind the minds of travelers

      With snares of longing.

      Songs of adventure and of glory,

      Of giving names

      To new lands, to new creatures.

      These songs promise freedom

      From the tedium

      Of familiar words,

      From the confines

      Of the cradle, the field, the hearth,

      From the gray stones of the graveyard,

      From the moss that steals over the names

      Of a long line of ancestors.

      Songs of warmth,

      Of embracing arms and sheltering walls.

      These songs promise to turn

      The terrors, the regrets

      Of past voyages,

      The uncharted vastness of the future

      Into words, into lusty tales

      That can be traded

      For a hearty tankard of ale

      A seat close to the fireplace,

      The eager gaze of a rapt listener.

      5. Nightmares and their riders

      I have nightmares now.

      I dream that something happened to you…

Anastasya Shepherd

      A nightmare is a kind of horse:

      A powerful creature, wild and willful.

      Approach her with respect, with skill,

      For she may bite, kick or rear;

      She may leave the one who dares to touch her

      Broken, paralyzed, dead.

      Yet she is capable of learning to accept a rider.

      Balancing on the back of a nightmare,

      Riding a dark dream,

      We can leap much farther than is humanly possible.

      A nightmare can carry us across an abyss.

      6. Trains and their dreamers

      The train stitches together images,

      like a demented alliterating seamstress…

Anastasya Shepherd

      The distant clatter

      Of the predawn train

      Quilts the quiet air,

      Pulls the thread of the whistle

      Long, long, l-o-ong

      Through the mist.

      Between sleeping and waking

      I dream.

      I piece together

      Stations, timetables, tickets

      To choose my own destination,

      To fashion a different self.

      7. Synaesthesia

      There are times in life when synaesthesia becomes inescapable,

      when water smells like lead and feels blue…

Anastasya Shepherd

      Escape is possible.

      Search the floor of your perception,

      Feel for the hidden trapdoor,

      The moment of synaesthesia.

      Pry it open,

      Heave it up on its rusty hinges.

      Plunge into the blue.

      Roll up, solid, dull,

      Like a ball of lead.

      Sink through the water,

      Pass through the gradations

      Of the shimmering light

      Deepening into darkness,

      As the shadows thicken.

      Let go of all

      That has been visible.

      Feel the weight of the ocean

      Press you to the bottom.

      Smell your own fear.

      Taste the bile of loss.

      Rise, rise like an air bubble.

      Push through the cool resistance

      Until you are released,

      Until you burst into nothingness.

      Let the freedom of empty space

      Flood your senses with joy.

      8. The Age of Discovery

      You make choices.

      Those

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