Vocation Island

We've put treasure on islands,
and prisons, dark houses
swept by lighthouses.

We've put fantasy on islands,
and reality shows that prove
every one is a part
of the main, that when
you dive down, you find
the island is just a piece
of the continent.

We like the metaphor
of separation,
the vacation island,
the going away
that makes us
long for home,
then the bittersweet
return to vocation island.

These islands,
these bits of sand
and rock we cling to,
surrounded by waters
too vast to fathom,
we like them.


We like our islands,
and we cling to them still,
for peace, quiet, chaos, noise,
rising and falling,
yin and yang,
anima and animus.


But they aren't separate:
the water and the land.
They are one.


We walk along this shoreline,
this meeting of land, water, and sky,
bathed by sunlight, and watch
the tides drawn by the reflected light
of our little brother island
across the Armstrong strait.

* * * * *

This poem was written in response to the day fourteen prompt at Poetic Asides to write a poem titled "(blank) island" for the Poem a Day Challenge back in April.