Sea Of Sorrows Poem by Dennis Adonis

This poem is actually a spiritual twist to an experience I had when I was just twelve years old.

I can vividly recall that I went to a nearby waterway against my parents' wishes and decided that it may be a good idea to take a splash inside, since a clique of older guys were already swimming in there.

To describe the waterway; - it was about 40 feet wide and about 18 feet deep at its deepest point.

It was a mere 20 feet away from my grandmother's home in rural Guyana, and was a favourite place for emerging and experience swimmers to gather and indulge in all sorts of daring water sports.

At 12 years old, I was already an excellent swimmer, as I had known that waterway since I was five years old.

Anyway, I can recall making a daring plunge into the water as is customary, but this time I just couldn't rise up to the surface.
I suddenly felt like I was deep down below a very wide and open ocean, and was actually drowning.

After struggling to save myself, I became abruptly tired and decided to relax and let the water take me.
I think I must have blacked-out for about 30 seconds and almost felt as if I was in a dream staring at a glowing man who was holding my hands going downward in the waterway.

I can recall looking at him as I began to weep with much sorrow as I was kinda saying that I am not ready to go, please help me.

However, for whatever reason, I felt as if he forced me back to the top of the water, and as such I began pushing my body again in a swimming mode which took me within seconds to the other side of the waterway.

As I crawled up to its bank, I inevitably expunged a lot of water, while gasping for breath.

Suffering from a bout of confusion, I crawled further up from the waterline out of fear for what I had just experienced.

As I looked at everyone else in the waterway, they were all still busy doing what they knows best, and did not seem to have a clue about what had just transpired.

I never told my parents about this incident, but took almost seven days to start hearing properly again, and about ten days to start breathing normal again.

Now, I am not sure if this whole incident was as a result of my imagination or whether this whole thing was indeed a spiritual encounter with the keepers of the waterway.

Either way, I did not ventured back into that waterway for about two years, as I struggled to implant in my head that the entire episode was all in my imagination.

But whatever it was that had happen on that day almost 25 years ago, I was luckily able today to put it all into a poem that people can read and connect with spiritualism and its perceived presence in the oceans and rural waterways.