who among us has hands,
gill slits, who will gather up
a small thing
waiting too far from the ocean
to be alive or return
with the kelp and its bulbs of gold,
and the creature we see almost through,
see in the light of morning
among the many baleful closures of the ocean.
How is it decided
who will gather up the small thing
seeming lifeless
and return it to water as its grave
only to watch it slowly open;
jellyfish like a pulse;
a robe of orange splendor
in the finery of ocean creation.
I see the wave, with a curve of light,
the force of it, one after another,
not wondering if it is the ocean.
I see the infinite pastures of water,
some with the newly born, some
with the just as newly gone.
Here is a place of sliding worlds,
at the birthplace of Chief Seattle
whose people he said would always be
And how is it decided who has dominion
of the flesh
to pass through unseen
or on its way to being spirit,
forgetting the brief distances in time.
I don’t know who lives here,
if they are happy
in that slide of cells
that created and birthed them
or who is it that decided who has hands,
who can speak,
who is light.