Enjoying the journey — Summary

going into a box to hide and fall asleep is my journey

going to a place out of place in my cellar of waters and hands

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The title promises an enjoyable trip, but the poem describes something very different: climbing into a box to hide and fall asleep. The speaker calls this "my journey," and the gap between the cheerful title and the small, enclosed action is what makes the poem interesting. The journey is not outward. It is a retreat, a shrinking down into safety and sleep.

The second stanza takes the speaker somewhere stranger. They go to a place that is "out of place" in their own cellar, which the poem describes as full of "waters and hands." The cellar suggests the deep, hidden part of the mind, and the odd image of waters and hands could point to feelings that flood, or to memories that reach out. That reading is an inference, since the poem never explains it.

The mood is quiet, dreamlike, and a little uneasy. The speaker seems to find comfort in hiding, yet the title's "enjoying" may be ironic, or may be a way of insisting on calm.

Read also

More by Dave Bonta

All poems
ContemplativeDave Bonta

Fairy Bells

Prosartes lanuginosa Their ringing isn’t obvious; you need the ear of an anchorite to find them.
CheerfulDave Bonta

Homunculus

Within my mind a mind I long to tame— a left boy, a little Hercules, the king of ham.