The Sound of the Sea in a Seashell
April 17 2008


The sound of the sea in a seashell
a thousand miles from the coast.
Which I still want to believe:
that the essence of things
is incorruptible.
And that we are marked
by landscape,
by the angle of the sun,
by the muffled sound of a heartbeat
floating in darkness.

My ears hot with blood
its salt the same as the sea
washing over me
like it beats against the shore
— my headlands and coves,
my fine sand, my rocky coast,
and the irregular line of foam
as the tide recedes.

I head out
feeling my way with my feet
gradually descending,
as the surge of the surf
tugs my body deeper,
then releases me.
When the bottom drops away
and I float free —
like water poured into water;
the way fine white salt
instantly dissolves.

Which is when I panic
and claw myself back to the surface
— the cold spray
the breaking waves,
hungry to breathe.
And the sharp ocean air,
burning with salt
and the queasy smell
of rot.

Sea shells remind me of this.
And in perfect silence,
when I listen to myself.