Dream vessels

It’s coming on (no, not Christmas) but bedtime. And the prompt asks me to write about a ship or other vehicle that can take you somewhere different from where you are now. And my mind drifts into a cloud-strewn harbour where the silver boat that carried wynkin, blynkin and nod into their dreamtime floats. I never cared so much for the poem – silly mummy, just saying sonorous words in a slumberous tone was not going to get me to fall to sleeeeepppp. But, this evening I find myself completely seduced by the idea of designing a dreamtime boat that rocks gently on a shore, some evenings just a gangplank away from laneways and squares filled with delights of the earlier evening, on other nights a wade through ankle-deep, still-warm waters and a beach bed with the stars above. On other nights, I’m content to snuggle aboard or starfish across the deck. The boat itself – there are blousy sails that offer wildly poetic angles through which my eyes can drift along the milky way. My hand reaches to the right, finds the glass, with its endless bubbles of crisp, cool water which tickle my nose and scatter small kisses on my cupid’s bow. Beneath my leg the  fabrics soft, their colours rich, and the cushions and pillows ohhhh, they’re everywhere, just everywhere. Obviously, the ship’s enchanted, no need for crew or maintenance. Gosh, I wish the same enchantment encompassed my house and garden – the release I just felt in my body as that imagined whisper took hold in my brain…but for now, the vessel of words has taken me on a journey that didn’t exist a moment ago, and the sonorous words and slumberous tone of my own self have done a mum on me, and I’m ready for sleep.