14

It is time to discover the oceans—

I fling myself into the deepening,

Roll and slap, swallow what fits in my maw,

Launch my small skiff on the thrashing green sea,

Follow the bell buoys of my mind.

A dot in the roiling,

Convulsed by the waves,

I ask and find stillness in knowing:

This is the stuff of the water,

And this is the shape of the sky.

This is the measure of masses,

And this is the logic of air.

Adrift in this strange jittered world,

I am held by these meters and grams,

By Zafir’s atom densities,

Wind on my sail,

Action reaction,

The compass submitting to magnetic force.

These are the bits of some pattern,

I think, and I hold and am held,

And the numbers are wind and rock,

Even a holiness

Holding my body, and this might be the way.