Brief Abduction

Once aboard, after
the initial shock of arrival,
I ask to see the library.

This, they say, is not a place,
a physical location,
a bath in which I can immerse

myself, adding hot and cold
to reach a temperature and depth
that I might find congenial;

it's more like stepping into
an ocean, whose first few feet
of sloping, shifting sand soon drop

away into a virtual
infinity, unplumbable,
where monstrous phantoms roam.

At any rate, they say, briskly
but with regretful tenderness,
they were mistaken (this said not

unkindly: it's not me, it's them) -
our journey's over. And it was.
They put me back. Since then

I have read no books, they taste
too much of earth. I count the stars.
I am a watcher of the skies.

David Callin

If you have any thoughts on this poem, David Callin would be pleased to hear them.