A Sea Poem by David Wagoner
I can't write one, but I can pass one along.
The Calm - David Wagoner
Drifting and mimicking the loss of the windWith a loss of mind,Left slack-sailed here in the sea, doing nothing at allFor days, we beginTaking our lives uneasily. Only the daylightAnd the cracked chronometerAre moving. Though we turn away from the sunOr rise under the moonAs if we were earth and tide, the rest is stillness. If we broke our silence,This palpable air would ripple obediently,But our voices falter.They melt on the sea, as brief as glints of starlight.On the deep dry landWhy did we never think of the miles and milesUnder us, holding us?Above half-leagues of water, we think of littleElse than how deeplyThe two of us might sink, turning to foodFor the thoughts of others.We could have stayed on firmanent, on a desertWhere water waves goodbye,Goodbye, and vanishes, a plain where it flowsOn its own sight journeys,Or on mountains where we could watch it frozen, toppling(Instead of us) down cliffsides.But here we huddle, surrounded. From miles below,Now, come the monstersToward the glassy calm around us, uncoiling,Lifting kelp-raggedSlime-scaled snag-toothed cold impossible heads,Eyes filled to the brimWith blankness, breaching and hulking, slewing toward usWhere we drift like lures.Though they come closer, closer, blurred in the dark,They never strike, neverLoom, ravenous, never thrash the surfaceTo break this mirror.Poetry by countryfog
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Written on 2013-06-08 at 17:18
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