POEM - Vessel of Dreams

Not casual wood, adrift and bleached by tides of passing whim,

Nor gilded hull where vanity in shallow harbours swims.

This vessel, shaped by patient blade and vision stern and deep,

Was kneaded with salt, secret prayers, and promises to keep

Through squalls unseen. Its keel was laid where longing meets the shore,

Where restless feet on shingle played, demanding something more

Than anchored safety, known and warm. The ribs, like fingers, curled

To cradle cargo not of corn, but weightless, precious world

Of gathered sighs and sparks alight – the fragile, burning kind

That flicker in the inner night, conceived within the mind

And nursed on hope. This cargo holds no manifest or claim,

But fragile futures, tales untold, whispered in shadow's name:

A map to stars not yet revealed, a cure for ancient wrong,

A field where barren hearts are healed, the notes of perfect song

Still hanging in the air unborn. These volatile, bright things

Are stowed with care before the morn, on faith's precarious wings.

The wood itself remembers still the forest's patient sigh,

The root's deep grip against the hill beneath a changing sky.

It knows the bite of shaping tools, the ache of being bent

To curves designed by hopeful fools, on sacred labour spent.

Each plank, a testament to grain resisting, yet complying,

Holds tension like a tightened chain, beneath the varnish lying.

The pitch that seals each aching seam is brewed from fallen tears,

And stubbornness, a stubborn gleam persisting through the years

Of doubt's corrosive, creeping mist. The sail, a patchwork spread

Of fragments: failures tightly kissed, and triumphs warmly bled

Onto the cloth. It's not a flag for boasting or display,

But cloth to catch the wind that drags the hesitant away

From moorings safe. The rudder, carved from hardest, seasoned oak,

Once trembled in the hand that starved its fear with every stroke,

Now waits to bite the current's flow, to guide by unseen chart

Through waters where the wild things go, and reef and wreck impart

Their solemn lessons. This small ship, this ark of aspiration,

Is launched not with a grand flagship's pip, but trembling dedication,

Pushed off the sand by hands that know the cost the voyage bears,

Towards the vast, uncertain glow that beckons, dares, ensnares.

It rides now on the heaving breast of deep and ancient seas,

Put slowly, surely to the test by capricious, shifting breeze

And currents strong that pull below. Its hold, a fragile sphere

Where concentrated futures glow, defying every fear

That leaks like water through the boards. The sky may bruise and lower,

The wind may scream discordant chords, testing the builder's power,

The stower's faith. Great waves may rise like mountains, dark and steep,

Reflecting terror in their eyes who sail the soul's own deep.

Then, timbers groan, the cargo shifts, a restless, vital weight,

Threatening to spill its precious gifts before some brutal fate

Consigns them to the swallowing surge. The helmsman, stiff and pale,

Must hold the course, refusing urge to furl the straining sail

And run. For squalls of doubt will pass, like spectres in the night,

Revealing stars through fractured glass, restoring guiding light.

The whispering reef of compromise, the siren song of ease,

Must all be met with guarded eyes, sailed past on bended knees.

The vessel's strength lies not alone in wood or rope or nail,

But in the spirit deeply sown, determined to prevail

Against the void's indifference, the weariness within,

Protecting that peculiar sense of where the dreams begin.

Does it seek harbour, calm and fair, a sheltered, sunlit bay

Where cargo lands with gentle care at ending of the day?

Or does the voyage claim the ship, dissolving plank by plank

In some far, strange, transformative trip where ocean meets the bank

Of understanding? Does it founder on some uncharted stone,

Its precious freight pulled darkly under, shattered, lost, alone?

Or does it sail beyond the rim, where maps dissolve to mist,

Its outline growing faint and dim, by starlight softly kissed,

Until the vessel and the sea, the dream and its release,

Become one vast eternity, finding a final peace

Beyond all ports? The builder knows, deep in the crafting bone,

That true creation ebbs and flows, its destiny unknown,

Demanding only this: the craft be sound, the courage true,

The cargo carried fore and aft, held sacred through and through,

Regardless of the landfall made. The value lies not in the gold

Potentially displayed when daring stories are retold,

But in the sailing, fierce and free, the tending of the spark,

The honouring of what might be against the pressing dark,

The fragile structure holding fast the unproven, vital flame

Against the ocean's die that's cast. The vessel earns its name

Not by arriving, safe and whole, but by the depth it rides,

The fierceness of the dreaming soul it carries on its tides.

It is a casket wrought from air and yearning, wood and will,

A temporary shelter where impossible things dwell still,

A shell against the crushing deep, a compass pointing far,

A promise that the soul can keep, guided by its own star.

It sails the vast, internal main where monsters lurk and gleam,

Built to withstand both joy and pain, this brave, endangered dream.

Its worth is measured wave by wave, in every storm defied,

In every precious thing it gave safe passage, deep inside,

Until the moment, far or near, when hull and dream must part –

One dissolving without fear, the other in the heart

Forever anchored, or set free to shape another shore.

The vessel's true necessity? To hold, to strive, to soar,

And risk the breaking, wave on wave, for dreams demand no less

Than everything the bold and brave within their frail caress

Can muster. So the builder sails, the dreamer and the dream

Alike at mercy of the gales, a flickering, shared gleam

Upon the face of the profound, a testament that streams

Of hope require a vessel, bound for seas beyond our scheming.

Short Summary

"Vessel of Dreams" explores the creation, purpose, and perilous voyage of a metaphorical ship built to carry the fragile, vital cargo of human aspiration. The poem details the vessel's intentional crafting from struggle and hope, the volatile nature of its dream-cargo, and its journey across treacherous internal and existential seas. It emphasizes the courage required to launch and maintain such a vessel against doubt, storms, and the unknown, ultimately suggesting the vessel's true value lies not in guaranteed safe harbour, but in its sacred role as protector of the dream during the vulnerable voyage itself – a testament to the enduring human spirit that dares to sail towards the unimaginable.