With seaweed and barnacle
The ocean has come
From underneath
Where we can't see
But it holds us anyway
At the moment of the shore.
Babies dance the two-step in the foam
To a celestial orchestrator,
Children slide in tremolo
Undertow, and the rolling
Corazon rrrr's of those older
Form chords with the swells
As they tumble.
Out a ways
The manta rays
Leap to a beat not our own
But part of the pull
We go to in our diminuendo
Of the endless emptiness
Past the sift of sand.
The surf stumbles to a close
In evanescing veils
Redolent of the painful joys
Lost in every moment
And recovered so dangerously
In the dive of staying alive
Amid the flashing teeth of wave.
It feels us in its sway
As we walk away waterlogged
And sunk into incongruous
Unimaginable soil.
The only voice
Worth listening to
Is the one we cannot hear.
