Where will we reach sailing in a coffin or dreaming to anchor off the rainbow arch the gold and purple ashes won’t revive the phoenixes lost in myths and stories:
we need to recoup the elements’ balance and create new suns and moons that could light the cave and begin a fresh future
The poem opens with a worried question: where are we headed? The speaker pictures people "sailing in a coffin," a grim image of drifting toward death, or else dreaming of anchoring beside a rainbow, which is a pretty fantasy with nothing solid behind it. Both options look like dead ends.
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